Harry Potter and the Halfblood Weasleys
by HarryBond007
Summary: Time Travel. Couple of visitors from the future with a certain mission. (May 2014) ON HOLD until I move forward with the rest of my stories
1. The Search for a Familiar Place

"Mum is going to be so mad when she finds out." a boy said then rushing through an open field, he was following a slightly older girl but it was so early that the dim light made it very difficult to fully distinguish anything else.

"She is not going to find out because no one is going to tell her." the girl replied without slowing down, she seemed to be very busy looking for something in that field but the lack of sunlight was making things very hard and the boy's complaints were not helping.

"She will, she always does." the boy insisted.

"This time she won't." the girl tried to cut off the conversation.

The redhead boy trailed off for a moment but it didn't took long before he spoke again. "How do you know that?"

"I-I... I just know ok? "

"Well I think that she will find out." the boy said.

"Hugo please, it's not the time."

"We should explain her everything before she finds out, it will be better. Besides if it works she might not even be mad at all."

"Hugo..." the girl said clearly annoyed now.

"What? Do you think that she'll be mad either way? I think that-"

"Hugo!" the girl finally stopped quickly turning to face her brother with a disgruntled face "She won't! ok? now can you please stop whining and hurry up? I don't want the wrong people spotting us here."

All the answer that she got was a slow and discouraged nod but that was more than enough for her because in the current situation they just couldn't allow to waste any more time. Her eyes moved then trying to see if they were noticed by someone and when she was sure that no one else was around she switched her attention back to the front.

They continued walking through the dark countryside without much luck for some time, whatever they were looking for didn't seem like something easy to find so the desperation became soon visible on the girl's face. The night had been long so she was tired and hungry but that thought only made things worse because she had been blaming herself for not bringing any food with them, it really seemed like a stupid idea not packing at least a nosh when they didn't knew how long the trip was going to take.

The redhead girl sighed taking all those thoughts away from her head, wondering about what could had happened didn't matter because the most important thing at the moment was to focus on her task. So, she tried something different, she extended her arms ahead and started moving them hastly as she walked around as if she was trying to seize something out of the thin air. "I know it is around here, I just know it." she mumbled to herself, "I recognize those hills... things look different but even so... Hummm" she snorted.

She kept moving her head in all directions and wandering from one place to another until she noticed that the silence had covered her entirely, her eyes expanded at once and she turned around quickly very afraid of not finding her brother anymore. Fortunately for her the boy was still there staring heavily at his feet with a very sad look on his face, that image surprised the bushy haired girl who after a moment sighed and approached the boy trying to look less severe.

"Hugo, we have to do this ok? We are already here, there is no going back." she said putting a hand over his shoulder, "Sorry for yelling at you, I'm just nervous, we really need to find the place."

"I know"

The girl was expecting a more elaborate answer so she let a long time pass before talking again, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, it's just that... no forget it"

"Hugo what's the matter?"

"I... well I just... I want this to work." he said stopping for a couple of seconds to breath, "I really want it to work. I miss him... I miss them" he finished on a dreary tone.

Those simple words took the girl by surprise and then all the sorrow came back crushing her spirits. The girl couldn't remember them without the tragedy now, every time that she thought about her mother, her godfather or the rest of her family she saw them sobbing their lives away and she couldn't go through that all over again.

She fixed her blue eyes on her brother trying to answer on a soft voice. "I miss them too, that's why we are here, remember? We will bring him back."

After a moment Hugo tightened his mouth raising his eyes slowly to get a better look at her, "Rose?"

"Yes?"

"What we are doing... it is wrong, right?" asked Hugo with an edgy voice.

Rose was caught off guard by her brother's statement but she didn't found a way to disagree, the truth was that she had been thinking the exact same thing ever since they took that time-turner and it was clear that what they had done was not only wrong but it was illegal too. The night before they had broken into their mother's office with the only thought of bringing their father back and they didn't consider the consequences then, all what they were thinking at that moment was that the small golden hourglass on their mother's desk could fix everything and it took them less than a minute to make up their minds. Now, if everything worked as expected, they were in the past with no-one knowing that they exist but hopefully that also meant that they were at a moment when their father was still alive.

Rose nodded, "It is wrong Hugo, I knew it the second we took that thing. However we are already here and this only works one way." she answered pulling a golden chain from beneath her shirt, "We have to continue."

Hugo seemed to be thinking about it for a moment then he spoke again, "Do you really think that we can bring him back?"

"Of course! otherwise all of this would have been for nothing. It has to work" she said giving the boy a wide smile, Hugo nodded trying to look more hopeful.

"Now, do you want to help me? We are close, I can feel it."

The boy's face went bright and nodded with enthusiasm, "Sure, what do you need me to do?"

Both of them spent the next hour moving their arms all around the field but without being able to find what they were looking for, a few times they even changed the direction and threw rocks at the wide space like waiting for something to answer but whatever they were waiting for it didn't come. Soon they found themselves exhausted and decided to rest for a while on a log that was nearby, that's where the light of the morning sun caught them.

"Are you sure that this is the place?" Hugo asked after a long pause.

"Positive, just look... can't you recognize it?"

The boy moved his head around narrowing his eyes as if that could help him get a clue of what he was supposed to notice. "I think so..." he said.

Rose was worried about him, the boy had not been the same ever since what their father's death and even when she had been having a pretty awful time herself she knew that she had to be strong for him, that was what they would've wanted her to do.

"Rose? Why didn't we apparated or something?"

Rose noticed that Hugo was looking peaky but there was not much that she could do about it, they hadn't brought any food or Muggle money with them so their options were scarce because of that foolishness. The girl wailed softly at their situation thinking that if she had acted less impulsively maybe they wouldn't be struggling like that but then if she hadn't acted like that they probably wouldn't be where they were in the first place, she was always more judicious on second thoughts.

"Neither of us knows how to apparate Hugo, I'm sorry." said Rose looking ashamed of not having answers for him.

Hugo looked confused, "Sorry? sorry for what?"

"Because I dragged you here without a plan? or maybe because I was so dumb that forgot to pack something to eat?"

"Oi! Hold your hipogriffs! What do you mean? I was there too and I didn't bring anything either," Hugo started, "besides you didn't drag me, I came all by myself"

"But if I only-"

"No!, this is not your fault Rose, now knock it off and lets keep moving. We have to find that- those- whatever" said the boy standing up from the old log.

Rose smiled at her little brother and she stood up also with renewed energies, Hugo had always been very simple with things and she was grateful for that.

Their task continued for another half hour until something unexpected happened, Rose was walking through the field but for a moment she got distracted on a distant point and didn't notice when something hit her hard in the front, immediately after that she was propelled to the ground with great strength.

"Ouch!" she whined rubbing her rear where she had landed.

"Rose!" yelled Hugo running towards his sister, "What happened? Are you all right?"

"Yeah, it's just... my arse"

Hugo laughed briefly, "What? What happened?" he tried to sound serious but he failed to remove the wide smile out of his face when he noticed that his sister was ok.

Seeing Hugo smile was surely something positive but in her current position she didn't found it amusing, "Oh stop it!"

"Sorry it's just that- what happened?" he asked again turning to look in the direction where her sister had been standing just moments before.

Rose snorted at him and she moved her blue eyes to the front, "Don't know I hit... something" her explanation had been very vague but even so it was wrong because in front of her there was nothing but air. "... What the...?"

"Rose there's nothing there, didn't you trip over?"

"Of course not! something hit me!" replied Rose very offended.

"All right, all right, let me see." Hugo said standing up and walking to where her sister had been supposedly thrown away.

"Hugo, be careful" added Rose still from her place in the ground.

"It's ok- I guess" said the boy as he started touching lightly the weird space, Hugo's eyes opened in surprise then because every time that the tip of his finger got near to the point where Rose had been hit a few waves moved around as if the air was not air but a long portion of transparent and vertical water.

"Oh!" Rose said widening her eyes, "we found it!"

"What!? Really?! this... thing?" asked Hugo raising and eyebrow.

"Yes! those are the wards."

"Are you sure?" asked the redhead boy still reluctantly.

"Of course I am sure! I know about these things."

Hugo gave up the argument, "If you say so, but how do we get in?"

"I don't know" said Rose honestly.

"You don't know?!" asked Hugo, "so are we just going to stay here until someone sees us?"

"Maybe we can walk around it until we find an entry point or something like that." suggested Rose standing up and shaking the dirt out of her blue jeans.

"Rubbish! I have a better idea" said Hugo grabbing a rock from the ground.

"No! Hugo wait!"

But it was too late because the rock flew away from Hugo's hand and went straight to the invisible wall in front of them. Rose ducked instinctively expecting the rock to come back to them but nothing happened.

"Huh? where is it?"

"Oh... On the other side probably." answered Hugo, "Crap! I thought that it would let us in or at least give us clue."

"Hugo these are powerful wards, they are not going to be beaten by a stupid rock!"

"Well it was worth the try, didn't it?"

Rose snorted and then she walked towards the barrier but she didn't got a solution, instead she experienced the same air waves than her brother, "Guess that it only blocks persons, not rocks."

"Now what?"

The redhead girl narrowed her eyes trying to find a way in but she was out of ideas, she got very frustrated about her current situation because her birthday was a few days away and she was going to be of age but until then she couldn't use her wand outside of Hogwarts, at least that was the situation before she left home and she didn't want to risk finding out how the trip affected the underage restriction. They remained there for a couple of minutes with Hugo throwing more rocks to the wall as Rose tried to imagine how many things she could try if she were able to use her wand but suddenly a voice brought them out of their thoughts.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" the strong voice asked.

They both gasped in surprise because out of nowhere a man had appeared holding a wand and pointing it directly at them. The man was tall and handsome and his hair was totally red, Rose didn't recognized him at first because of how young he looked but Hugo mumbled something that brought light to the girl quickly, "U-Uncle B-Bill?" he asked doubtfully from behind her but in a voice so low that Rose was sure that the man didn't hear him.

"What was that? I asked you a question." Bill Weasley's voice sounded very severe.

"Two actually." answered Hugo instinctively.

"Don't try to act funny with me!" he insisted gripping his wand even more dangerously, "I want answers and I want them now unless you want things to get ugly."

Hugo and her sister were temporarily stunned by the reaction of the man in front of them, they couldn't believe that he was the same good man that used to share his awesome stories about Africa with them, the man that they knew was always laughing and trying to turn a blind eye to every prank being orchestrated but this man didn't seem to have a sense of humor at all. Something didn't felt right for Rose who until that day had a very different image of the eldest Weasley brother, all of her life she had thought that beyond the scruffy clothing style and the intimidating scar Bill Weasley was so good-natured that he wouldn't be able to kill a fly even if he tried to, now she wasn't so sure of that anymore.

"I don't have all day!" yelled the young scarless man, he was now moving his wand impatiently between them and narrowing his uncanny blue eyes like trying to decide what to do with them.

Hugo turned to look at his sister with fearful eyes at which the girl's only answer was a reassuring nod. Rose knew that they never expected to face their uncle when they first decided to travel all this way back but now they needed to convince him if they didn't want to be victims of his wand.

"I'm Rose" said the girl with determination, "and this is my brother Hugo"

The redhead man seemed to ease a bit at the first of his questions answered but still there was a long way until Rose could feel that they had convinced him. "Last name!"

Rose's eyes moved briefly to her brother who had paled at that question, "It's alright Hugo" she said and then moved back to face her uncle, "Weasley"

The surprise was evident on Bill Weasley's face and for moment it appeared as he had loosened the grip on his wand but he soon regained his severe expression and returned to his previous behavior, "Rubbish! I know the Weasley family tree perfectly, there is no Rose or Hugo in there! Last name!" he asked again pointing his wand at Rose.

"She already told you! is that so hard to notice?!" yelled Hugo rushing to stand between the man and his sister with a frown on his face.

Bill Weasley was suddenly stunned looking at the boy and after a moment his eyes opened wide and he gapped, "R-Ron?... what are you...? what is going...?... What?" The grip from his wand loosened again but before anyone could say anything else they were interrupted by a another man appearing.

Rose's blue eyes quickly expanded at the sight a much younger Arthur Weasley who didn't have a single grey hair on his head yet, "What's happening here?" he demanded looking at Rose and Hugo.

"Dad? What are you doing here?"

"Your mother was nervous, you were taking too long." the man said turning to look at the visitors, "Who are they?"

"They say that their names are Rose and Hugo, they say that they are Weasleys but they're lying there are no Rose's or Hugo's in the family tree. Still look at the boy, he looks a lot like..."

"Ron" Rose's grandfather sighed with disbelief as his son nodded at him. Then the man turned to look at Rose and he appeared to be surprised again, "And the girl, she is Hermione..."

Rose's uncle seemed surprised because he hadn't noticed that before but he soon agreed with his father, "What's going on here?... they can't be polyjuiced... Ron is taller than the boy and Hermione's hair is not red."

"Explain yourselves" demanded Arthur Weasley.

After thinking about it for a moment Rose decided that the only way that they could believe her was if she showed them some proof so she moved her hand to her shirt and then she pulled out the gold chain out.

Both men were shocked when the weird hourglass was at sight hanging from Rose's chain, "It can't be... a time turner?!"

"We are from the future" said Hugo.

"That's i-impossible," said Arthur Weasley, "You are not in the family tree and time turners don't go that far!"

"They do from where we come from... Grandpa" said Rose staring directly at the man who almost jumped at they way that she had addressed him.

"Prove it" demanded Rose's uncle.

Hugo then opened his mouth ready to talk but Rose rushed to stop him quickly, "We can prove it but I don't think that this is the place to do it."

"You're nuts if you think that we'll let you in just like that."

"Bill, hold on." said Rose's grandfather stunning his son, "she's right, if they're saying the truth we cannot leave them here, we cannot talk freely either. Besides that device is something."

"I guess, but... are you sure Dad?"

The balding man then turned to look at Rose, "We will need to cast a few spell on you for precaution, we'll also take that device of yours and your wands. I promise that we'll return them once that everything has been cleared."

"Of course Grandpa!" Rose answered smiling and giving her wand without a second thought which surprised the redhead men slightly.

"All right come on then" the older man said as he moved her wand around them and across the wards too, before they knew it they had passed the barrier and the tall twisted Burrow appeared in front of their eyes.

The moment that Hugo and Rose entered the Burrow they felt a huge heaviness leaving their shoulders, they hadn't even noticed it but since they left their house many hours before they had been carrying a lot of worries and in some way being back at the Burrow made everything much brighter. The Burrow always felt like a second home to them and it was surely an improvement against being outside without any food or money, it was certainly safer too.

"It's the same!" Hugo said in awe earning a few suspicious glances from his uncle.

The boy wasn't lying, even when the place had a few different things it seemed as if nothing had changed, everything was in the exact same position that they remembered and the feeling of cozyness was as familiar and warm as ever. Only two things caught Rose's attention, the first one was obviously the lack of pictures of grandkids which were replaced by those of her father, Aunt Ginny and all of her uncles; it was really weird being surprised by so many pictures of them as kids when she had been seeing them as grown ups her entire life.

Then there was the family clock which had fewer hands than the one in the future, this clock was actually visible because it was not flooded with the names of so many grandkids and daughters-in-law that made the one in the future almost impossible to read for anyone who wasn't Rose's grandmother. Then the girl was suddenly hit by the implications of their trip, all of those clock hands that were missing belonged to her family and at that moment Rose didn't know if she was going to be able to see them again, she missed them all and surprisingly she even missed James.

However Rose didn't had time to remember all of her cousins because there was something else on that clock that was very disturbing, all of the hands were unmistakably set to a label that seemed to be yelling **_mortal peril_**. Rose had only seen that clock in "mortal peril" a couple of times in her life and both times had been during pretty dangerous missions of uncle Harry, the very thought of how much complicated the situation was at this time made the girl pale.

"Arthur! what took you so long?" a familiar voice came from the kitchen as they walked towards that room. Hugo's smile appeared instantly and Rose couldn't avoid to show a happy smile either, after all they were hoping that their grandmother could understand them, she always knew what to say or do even in the hardest of the circumstances.

"It's... difficult, you better sit down sweetheart." her husband replied as the four of them entered the kitchen and Molly Weasley turned towards them, Rose was not surprised of finding out that she looked almost the same as in her own time just a few grey hairs less.

Soon the surprise of looking at Rose and Hugo walking besides her husband and son became noticeable on Rose's grandmother but she was not the only one, Rose's eyes went big also when she discovered that the woman was not alone in the kitchen.

"Who are those?!" said suddenly a man that Rose recognized as a very young version of his uncle George who was wearing the kind of clothes that he usually wore to work on the joke shop, suddenly Rose thought that she should've expected him to be there eating breakfast because it was very early and Uncle George was not married yet.

"Well I am not sure Gred but that one looks a lot like Ickle little Ronnie" another Uncle George added and Rose gasped at the realization of who was just in front of her. So far Rose's desires of seeing her father again were mixed with the remorse of having done something very wrong, something that could cause them not to see part of their family ever again but the sight of the two identical brothers brought a utterly different perspective, one that she hadn't thought about before. Yes, people that she knew didn't exist at this time period yet but also there were people that she never got to meet, people that died way before she was even born, one of those people was Uncle Fred.

"Rose..." Hugo sighed with very wide eyes.

"I know" Rose whispered back.

"It seems that you are right Forge but look closer my brother, if there was a potion to turn someone into a Weasley I would swear that we have also a Hermione here." the first twin said pointing at Rose.

"It really seems so, she even comes with freckles and everything. Guess we should get our hands on that Weasley potion." said the second twin again causing Rose to blush at the comment.

"Arthur, what is going on?" Rose's grandmother finally asked ignoring the twins' words, she sounded very worried.

"As I said we should all sit down."

"Dad we have to get to the shop in-"

"It can wait," Rose's grandfather interrupted one of the twins, "this is urgent family business."

"Only if they are not impostors" Uncle Bill mumbled throwing weird looks at both of them.

Once that all of them were sitting at the kitchen table the Weasley patriarch explained everything to her wife and sons letting Uncle Bill fill the details that he missed. When he finished Rose turned to look at her grandmother and she wasn't surprised when she discovered that the woman couldn't take her eyes away from her, Hugo or the time turner that was now laying on the table. Rose was really expecting a lot of similar reactions, then Rose's eyes went wide trying to think on what reaction their parents would have when they talk to them.

"A-Are you saying... that these are our grandkids?" asked Rose's grandmother.

"That's what they are saying we still haven't been able to verify or deny it." added Uncle Bill trying not to sound accusative.

"We are saying the truth!" yelled Hugo but whatever he was planning on saying next it got lost by a loud grumble coming out of his stomach, "Sorry" he added turning slightly red.

"Merlin! when was the last time that you kids ate?"

"Last night Grandma, before leaving." Rose said shyly.

"And why didn't you said that before!" the woman stood up in a hurry towards the oven.

Soon their grandfather left the room because he said that they needed Dumbledore which really caught Rose's attention, she had been expecting him to show up at some point but they didn't knew if he would agree with what they had done so they knew that they had to act cautious around him. Rose only hoped that the wizard could be able to prove that they were saying the truth and after that maybe they could get their grandparents to support them with their plans.

Moments later their grandmother filled the kitchen table with food plates and their faces brightened.

"Blimey! Look at them go!" one of the twins said with surprise and when Rose discovered that he was talking about they way in which they were eating she blushed. Rose usually was much calmer with the food but whenever she was really hungry she couldn't avoid to speed things a bit up, her mother always said that it was the bad habits from her father but at this point anything that could make Rose remember her father was a good thing.

"Fred! stop it, the kids hadn't eaten in a while," the woman yelled but after that she returned to look at Rose with her frown totally gone, "You don't worry dear, if you want more there's still more in the oven"

Rose felt embarrassed so she tried to slow down a bit either way, "Thanks Grandma, I think that this will be enough."

"Well it is not hard to guess who is their father right Gred?"

"Absolutely not"

"W-WGRat wOo ow-ou mWe-a-an?" asked Hugo between mouthfuls making Rose feel ashamed of her brother's manners.

"My dearest nephew, you look a lot like a particular redhead that we all love..."

"Also there is the fact that we have a redheaded Hermione here..." said the other twin pointing at Rose.

"And of course there's also that weird table language that you just used."

"He's not always like that!" Rose said unconvincingly.

"Even so I must say that there is a high probability of you two being the kids of our lovely Ronnie and his adorable Hermione" no one really seemed surprised at that besides Rose and Hugo because they thought that they had travelled to a time where their parents were not yet together.

"Are they... going out? What year is this?" asked Rose very scared of arriving too late.

"Those are two very different questions Rose," said her grandfather, "the year is 1996, October 7th to be more precise. About your other question I am not sure but I believe that they are not together."

"Yet" blurted Uncle Bill.

Rose sighed, they were in the right date at least, "Then why did you said that they-"

"They are just blind, specially Ickle Little Ronnie..." said one of the twins.

"At this pace I'm betting on our Hermione to give the first move." the other twin added causing Rose and Hugo to smirk briefly, because of that they received weird looks from everyone around.

The twins' eyes brightened at once, "Hey! you could help us with a few bets."

"They sure know a few Quidditch results my brother."

"FRED! GEORGE! NEITHER OF YOU WILL DO SUCH THING!" the familiar yells of Rose's grandmother covered the kitchen, even so it was weird hearing her flapping over the twins' words like that since her memories only had images of Uncle George being reprimanded. For Rose it was a complete mystery how she could yell at every crazy idea from Uncle George but not even once at her grandsons, in fact all of James' and Freddie's mischiefs were usually attributed to Uncle George but to be fair Rose had to recognize that he was usually involved.

"You haven't said why are you here, you can talk now." said Rose's grandfather after he was sure that they had finished their breakfast.

"Oh yes," Rose started and instantly her face turned grim surprising many people, for a moment she had felt much better surrounded by her family even in the current situation but now she had to go back to the reason of their time trip and that was a very sad story to tell. "well it all started last month, our-"

TOC, TOC

Rose stopped suddenly at the noise of someone calling at the door and her grandfather quickly stood up walking towards the main door, "That must be Albus." he said. Hugo turned then to look at his sister with a concern look on his face, apparently he was also nervous of what the great Albus Dumbledore might say of their entire plan. Rose tried to look confident, if her uncle Harry's stories were true then the old wizard would at least listen to them first.

"Lets all go to the living room," said Rose's grandmother after her husband left the kitchen but she stopped briefly to take a look at Rose, "dear are you over with that? You can have more after we talk to Albus.."

"It's ok Grandma, I'm over" replied Rose with a wide smile.

"That's good" the woman said still pretty much shaken but she still was able to smile back weakly at the girl.

Rose was happy of that because at least she knew that their grandmother wouldn't let them alone, then Rose took a deep breath and walked towards the living room followed by Hugo. The redhead girl tried to keep her father present in her thoughts, if they could pass through Dumbledore's examination then it was likely that they could see him again and that filled her with strength.


	2. Difference of Opinion

**ROSE**

Rose was comfortably seated next to her brother on one couch and still she couldn't feel at ease. Albus Dumbledore was quite a presence and so far he hadn't taken his sparkling blue eyes away from them. He was wearing a long cloak that was shinning blue most of the time but it was entirely white very often too.

Rose saw Dumbledore's right hand and she shivered, she knew why it was scarred, she knew that the old wizard would die soon. The headmaster seemed to notice her attention on his hand but he didn't made any comment about it.

Everybody was seated seriously at the living room, even Uncle George and Uncle Fred who seemed to have forgotten about the joke shop. Albus Dumbledore didn't say anything until everyone was silently in their places.

"Good morning Molly," started the old man, "nice to see you in this lovely day."

"Good morning Albus, hope that we didn't took you out of something important."

"Don't worry, when there are so many important things around everything becomes suddenly less important, besides if I heard correctly this seems like a matter that requires my attention." the old wizard said looking up of his half moon spectacles in the direction of a small table where the time turner was resting.

Rose had heard a lot of descriptions about the old man and a couple of times she even saw his portrait at the headmistress office, even so seeing him in person was very different and she was already starting to feel analyzed by his deep blue eyes, just as Uncle Harry used to say.

"Yes it does" answered her grandmother nodding.

"Messrs Weasley, hope that everything is running smoothly at your interesting businesses."

"Unrealistically well professor, you can come to take a look at it whenever you like..." started one of the twins, Rose still wasn't able to distinguish them at all.

"We can make you good discounts" the other twin finished smirking.

Rose's grandmother snorted at her sons lightness but the headmaster didn't seem to notice, in fact he smiled at the twins widely as if that was the best of the ideas, "That really sounds fascinating, I may pass by one of these days, thank you very much."

"Professor had my father told you about our situation here?" Bill Weasley asked suddenly.

"Yes he has Mr Weasley and I must say that I am pretty interested in knowing all the details," Dumbledore answered just before turning to look at Rose again, "Miss Weasley I presume?"

Rose took a deep breath before answering, "Yes, I'm Rose and this is my brother Hugo."

"And you are here from the future?" asked the old man with a serious tone at which both of them nodded.

"What year exactly if I may ask?"

"2022" answered Hugo.

"Oh I see, do you have a way to prove what you are saying? other than this interesting device of course." he said looking at the time turner.

"Err... no but we know things... about you... about the future."

"I don't think that knowledge about the future is something to be should be thrown around so lightly Miss Weasley, perhaps you may be willing to confirm some of this under Veritaserum."

"Albus! they are kids! underage use of it is not allowed!"

"Mum it is the only way, we need to be sure." said Bill Weasley.

"He is right sweetheart, I cannot think on any other way." added Rose's grandfather.

"It's ok Grandma I know how Veritaserum works, I'll take it." answered Rose, in fact she would have suggested it if the professor hadn't brought it up first. They really needed their family to believe them or they would be all by themselves. They couldn't be alone, not now.

"Molly, do we have your consent?" asked Dumbledore.

The woman sighed and even when she didn't look convinced she nodded, "If she wants to then I won't complain, but you better not be asking more questions than needed!"

"I wouldn't dare to ask more than what is required," the old wizard said then turning his impressive blue eyes to face Rose, "Now Miss Weasley are you ready?" asked the man taking a vial out of his robes that held a transparent liquid.

"Is that really...?" asked Hugo with wide eyes.

"Veritaserum, yes it is." the man answered.

"Are you sure?" the boy asked then to his sister.

"Of course that I am sure, we want them to believe us, don't we?"

"Yes but... does it hurt?"

"It does not hurt Hugo, it is just to make me say the truth." answered Rose even when she had never drank the potion before, she decided to believe her family and books about it.

"Miss Weasley is correct there is no pain involved with this potion." said the headmaster.

"Ok" Hugo agreed with a nod, "do you want me to do it instead?"

"No it's all right I'll take it."

Then the vial floated all the way from Albus Dumbledore to where the girl was, the vial fell softly on her hands, Rose doubted for a moment but she knew that it was the only way so she took a sip out after a quick reassuring look to her brother. The effect of the potion didn't took long to appear because suddenly the girl started feeling a great calm and she felt that nothing could go wrong no matter what words came out of her mouth.

"Full name" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"Rose Weasley Granger" the girl said without hesitation.

Many gasps and weird reactions were heard across the room but before someone could say something the headmaster continue with the questioning, "What is your birth date?"

"October 10, 2006" More surprise words echoed, specially from her Uncle Bill who was really waiting for them to be revealed as impostors.

"Who are your parents?"

"Ronald Bilius Weasley and Hermione Jean Granger" she said.

"Shocking" one of the twins added not looking surprised at that at all.

"But this is impossible! time turners only go back for a few hours!"

"This one is better! Mum made it!" Hugo yelled stunning his Uncle Bill for a moment.

"What do you think my brother?" said Uncle George - or Uncle Fred - then.

"It does seem like our Hermione... you know being all smart and stuff."

More words were exchanged then but Rose didn't understood anything more until Professor Dumbledore spoke again, "It does seem like something that Miss Granger is capable of, she is after all a remarkably talented witch." the headmaster announced, "I believe that they are saying the truth and that only puts us on bigger problems."

"But what about the war? This must mean that Ron and Hermione survived the war..."

Quickly Rose found herself wanting to answer that as if it was something that she really needed to do, "The war ends on May 2nd 1998, both of our parents survived it." the girl answered like it was something very obvious.

Rose's grandmother gasped but she was not the only one surprised, "But that is more than a year from now! that's way too long!" she said.

"Molly dear, calm down everything is all right." Rose's grandfather said as he walked towards his wife.

"B-But what about Voldemort? is he dead? in your time?" Bill asked finally accepting that Rose was saying the truth.

"Uncle Harry killed him on the Battle of Hogwarts" answered Rose and a huge silence covered the entire room, everyone from the past was stunned now except the headmaster who seemed reasonably delighted.

"Harry!? he survives... oh Merlin Arthur!"

"I know sweetheart, it will all end." Rose's grandfather said as he embraced his wife.

"He... kills him!" said one of the twins.

"Yes he does!" added the other one with victorious expression, "that's our Harryinks, I never doubted him."

"Battle of Hogwarts?" asked Bill thrilled.

"The Battle of Hogwarts ended the war, it was the final battle against Tom Riddle." said Rose not even trying to control what she was saying anymore, a couple of times before she had tried to respond partially but the potion was too powerful to resist it.

Many shocked expressions spread around the room specially from Rose's grandparents who had just realized what a Battle at Hogwarts meant. At that moment many people tried to talk but they were stopped by Professor Dumbledore quickly. "I believe that this is going out of our hands, I urge you to refrain from asking more questions."

"B-But..."

"Molly future knowledge is very dangerous and we need to act with caution." the old man said and after a long pause the woman looked away and nodded.

"It is the best thing to do sweetheart, Albus is right." added her husband.

"Now Miss Weasley could you please tell us how do you ended up here?" Professor Dumbledore took control of the conversation again.

"We took our mother's time turner and used it to arrive at this time deliberately." the answer caused commotion on the room because clearly everybody knew that time was not something to take lightly, Professor Dumbledore's face was looking very severe though.

"And why would you do that?" he asked quite stiff.

"We wanted to make our parents get together sooner, before their seventh year."

The headmaster's eyebrows raised a bit and Rose fear at his reaction grew bigger, "I must assume that there is a very powerful purpose behind that, time is not something to play with"

Everyone's attention was fixed on Rose, "We did it to save our father."

"Save your father? from what? what happened to Ron?" Rose's grandmother shout quickly.

Rose opened her mouth but before she could answer Hugo's mute voice echoed in the silent room, "He died"

The worst reaction was from Rose's grandmother who almost fell to the floor at the surprise, fortunately her husband was able to get a hold of her before that. Rose's uncles weren't looking much better and disbelief phrases were thrown as if what Hugo just said wasn't even remotely possible. Rose hated herself right then because the serum was still pushing her to give an answer, "He died," she confirmed her brother's answer, "...weeks ago, we needed to change it."

Pale faces were spread across the room the moment that Rose was able to focus on them again, her Uncle Bill was specially beaten while the twins had faces that showed that they couldn't believe that. Still it were her grandparents the ones who got the biggest blow, it was really hard seeing Arthur Weasley trying to get a hold of his wife back at the same time that a shadow covered his face, Rose's heart compressed since she felt that she was experiencing everything all over again and she didn't know if she could take that now.

"Can't you give her the antidote already?" Bill Weasley's voice sounded alien, not his at all.

"I will, the serum is unnecessary at this point." Professor Dumbledore answered sending another vial towards Rose. The moment that the girl took the antidote things got worse since the calm abandoned her immediately and she was back again at a room filled with people that just found out that her father was going to die.

"This situation is something really regrettable," Professor Dumbledore rushed the words once that Rose was free of the serum, weirdly enough Rose noticed that sorrow covered his voice, "but Miss Weasley considering who you mother is I must say that I am surprised that you decided to do this. Death is a natural thing." he finished.

"Are saying that they shouldn't be here? But Ron..."

"Mr Weasley I know that this might sound harsh and I am really sorry, I appreciate your brother greatly you have to believe me in this. Still time is a puzzling matter it should not taking lightly and I am afraid that it should not be used to stop people from dying." he finished with a dark shadow over his face.

"We're sorry! we know that but we didn't thought, we wanted him back!" yelled Hugo.

"And that is very comprehensible but I must say that it doesn't make it right my boy. Your intentions might be honorable but time is not a toy, your future seems bright and now you might had compromised that."

Hugo lowered her sight heavily, Rose knew that the man was saying the truth but she didn't feel comfortable with her brother being reprimanded like that.

"But we need to do something." said Rose's grandmother for the first time since the news broke out.

"We really need to think what to do next, if we keep the current timeline as close as possible to the previous one we may prevent a lot of damage."

"Prevent damage!? my son is going to die! you are surely not pretending to let that happen again."

"Molly please listen to me, this is far beyond anyone of us. We need to ensure the stability of the current time line and later we need to worry about the war that is taking place. This situation might had changed the outcome of everything." Professor Dumbledore said calmly.

"I am not going to let my son die!" Rose's grandmother stood up in a place between the headmaster and her grandchildren, right then Rose turned suddenly afraid of what might happen then.

The tension in the room was unnerving and even when everybody else's attention was focused in Professor Dumbledore or Rose's grandmother the girl's thoughts were very far away. Until then she hadn't thought of all the things that could change, now the idea of different people dying because of their travel or the fact they could lose the war now was something that she couldn't deal with, the sole image of what her mother would say to her was alone the worse feeling that she had experienced in her entire life.

She thought on her cousins more than before, she always knew that traveling back could mean that none of them would be born but she had been denying it to herself. First in the rush of deciding to go back and then trying to not think about it but she always knew, it had been just the rush of the moment, she shouldn't be here.

"There are many things in stake, you had always known that not everything can end up as we would've liked."

"Not Ron! he is not a part of this! he is not even of age, Merlin!" yelled Rose's grandmother.

The old wizard turned to look at Arthur Weasley then, it was not clear if he was looking for support or if he was just trying to find out what was the man's opinion on this but Rose's grandfather voiced his mind soon enough, "I'm sorry Albus, I'm with Molly on this, we all are." said the man and then he turned to look at his new found grandkids, "If I had known of your plans, in the future, I wouldn't had let you continue with them but now that you are here and we know this... we can't just ignore it."

Rose was more afraid than ever as her Uncles and her grandfather stood right next to Rose's grandmother, shielding them from the headmaster. She couldn't remember a moment filled with more tension in her entire life, next to her Hugo was completely scared.

"I see" was all what the headmaster said as he stood up, maybe weighing his options. Rose knew that the old wizard could take all of them if what she had been told was right but doing that wouldn't guarantee keeping the time unchanged. Many things can happen in a confrontation like that.

"Albus I think you should go now" Rose's grandfather said.

"I am not the villain here Arthur, your son is not underage in the time when this happened. I guess he got to live a peaceful and happy life, something that people in this war will not have the privilege to experience. I want to be sure that you know what this means, people who didn't die on the original timeline could die now. The war could be lost."

Silence spread around the room and with every word of the headmaster Rose felt heavier. She had done wrong, she always knew she was doing wrong and still she brought them back. Just thinking of her mother being ashamed of her judgement tore her heart apart.

Rose's grand father nodded, "I know that you are right, I know that they did terribly wrong." he started, "But I can't stand at your side on this Albus, you better go now. We might talk later when we have thought this through"

Albus Dumbledore remained silent for a moment and finally nodded, "So be it. Can I at least take this artefact with me? To get a second look at it?"

After a moment Arthur Weasley shook his head, "Not now, we don't want you trying anything behind our backs. Sorry."

The headmaster of Hogwarts didn't made a gesture of being surprise, he only nodded, "I know the way out".

Before walking away the old man turned to look at Rose, his expression didn't changed but she knew that the man was disappointed. Rose didn't knew it but in some way that felt really wrong.

As soon as the old wizard left Rose's grandfather exited the room, Rose and Hugo were quickly embraced by their grandmother. "Everything will be all right, don't worry" she said, her hands were shaking and Rose saw her eyes watering. That broke her more than everybody's else reaction, she had done that to her grandmother by her reckless actions. Rose started sobbing, no longer trying to remain strong for her brother.

When her grandmother let them go Rose saw her uncles still in the living room. The twins looked pale and their sight seemed lost in the distance, they were standing together as if they didn't fit in there. Uncle Bill was resting against a wall still gripping at his wand and sweating, Rose hadn't realized it but they were all ready to fight against Albus Dumbledore a few moments earlier and they were going to do it because of them.

"I'm sorry grandma, we really didn't thought this through... if I had just... I'm sorry" Rose rushed with tears on her blue eyes.

Soon she was hugged by her grandmother again, "Don't worry, it is done."

Hugo joined them, "It was not Rose's fault! I wanted to come too!"

As they continued struggling with their burden and their decisions Rose saw Uncle Bill staring at them. She didn't know what he was thinking or if he was blaming them for all of it.

"It's done," her grandfather returned to the room, his voice sounded grim, "No one from the Order will be able to enter through the wards without our consent, only Weasleys"

Rose's eyes grew bigger, they were leaving the Order? She was already affecting the time more than she planned to. It was all a mess.

"What about Fleur?" Uncle Bill asked still staring at Rose, "She's out with Tonks"

"Go get her," his father answered him after a while, "We need to tell her"

Uncle Bill threw a weird look at Rose and Hugo then he exited the house.

Rose's grandfather walked to Rose and Hugo and saw them directly in the eyes, "You need to understand something, all of you do," he said the last part looking at the twins who nodded, "What you have done is terribly wrong, you have compromised a lot and I can't lie about it. It hurts me but Albus is right"

"I'm sorry grandpa I really didn't want to... it was just a foolish impulse. We were just..." Rose started but she was interrupted with a gesture from her grandfather.

"It was really wrong and maybe there's nothing we can do to fix this damage," he released a heavy sigh, " Still, I can imagine what you must had been feeling to do something like this. We are with you, I don't know what we'll do about Ron yet but we will keep you safe. This will always be your house, we are your family" he hugged them then.

Rose nodded feeling very heavy.

"Arthur we have to do something about Ron!"

"He is not in immediate danger. We'll see what is the best thing to do but for now I think we all need some rest"

"We can stay" said one of the twins.

Their father turned to them, "You can if you want to but you can go to work too. The Order of the Phoenix is not an enemy, they're just not sharing all of our goals now. They will not do anything to you there, you only need to watch out for Death Eaters as you have been doing so far. No word of this to anyone, specially no owls to Hogwarts."

Both of them nodded.

"Hugo dear, you can stay at your father's room for now." said Rose's grandmother, "Rose you know where's your Ginny's room, right? I don't think that she would mind"

Rose took her brother upstairs to get some sleep after all they didn't sleep at all the previous night, even so they both headed to their father's room without thinking it twice.

The moment they entered the familiar room they were overwhelmed, it had a lot of more things than they remembered but they were good things, orange and Quidditch all around. Rose couldn't repress a couple of tears at the memory of their father. She walked to the camp bed that was surely used by her Uncle Harry and fell there looking at the ceiling.

"Everything is going to be ok, right?" Hugo voice came from the other bed.

"I don't know Hugo, grandpa is right, we shouldn't be here"

"But we are now, is the plan still moving forward? Are we still going to bring Dad and Mum together sooner?" Hugo insisted.

Rose shrugged on the bed, "I- I really don't know, we'll see what grandpa says once everybody is more calmed. Even if we were trying to bring them together how are we going to reach them at Hogwarts? We would have to wait a couple of months when they return for Christmas"

Hugo remained silent for a moment, "What if Dumbledore keeps them there? if he doesn't let them come back?"

She was startled for a moment since that thought hadn't crossed her mind but it felt unlikely, at least she hoped that. "I don't think that he would do that. Dad, Mum and Uncle Harry would become suspicious... and we can always write to them or... I don't know there must be a way of contacting them."

Soon Rose fell a sleep beaten by the tiredness. She didn't dream at all but somehow the worries were with her the entire time. It was as if she was in a dark place with no way out. She tried to do things better and now she didn't knew if she could keep them from being worse.

It felt like a long time before she woke up, it was well passed noon and the first thing that she noticed was that she was covered with a blanket. She was wearing some old pyjamas too which were probably from Aunt Ginny, she could even see the places were the fabric had been extended with an enlargement spell. It was all probably her grandmother's doing. Hugo was still a sleep under a blanket too, he also was wearing some old pyjamas and Rose was sure that he hadn't noticed their grandmother coming into the room either.

Rose stood up and started looking through some of her father's things, most of them brought her memories and she knew that she could give anything in that moment to hug him one last time.

"You'll see him soon," the low voice of her grandmother came from the door, "we'll find a way. How did you slept?"

Rose forced a smile and tried to contain the tears, "Pretty well grandma, thanks. I was tired."

The woman smiled back, "It is lovely to have you here, is your brother going to..."

"Not now" she replied smirking.

"Just like Ron" her grandmother answered with her voice breaking out at the last part. Both of them were really sad and serious now. It was clear that the woman had been crying too, her eyes were puffy and red.

"You can take a shower if you want to dear, I put some clothes for you there." her grandmother said, "It's not the best but I think it'll do for now"

"It's perfect, thanks"

Rose took a pretty long hot shower, trying to think on something else. She couldn't though, the whole time she kept wishing that nothing went wrong with this trip but the water relaxed her a bit at least.

Back at the room she saw that Hugo was still asleep but she woke him up to tell her that she was going to be downstairs, she wasn't sure if her brother got that but she went down either way. There she met a young Fleur Delacour and to her grandmother's surprise she started talking very cheerfully with her. She told her about their future kids but she tried not to say much, her grandfather insisted in that.

Hugo came down for dinner and then the topic was finally discussed.

"I still don't get it," Uncle Bill was the one who started it, "If what you say is right your parents get together in a year or so. How them being together a year sooner would stop Ron from... you know"

Rose exchanged a look with her brother and nodded. They explained everything about their father's disease, Rose could still hear the healer's words echoing in her ears. He had a heart problem, one that Magic couldn't fix because it was caused by Magic. They explained everything about that bloody deluminator and how the St Mungo's experts ended up saying that it was that artefact the one that caused it all.

Everyone was silent, specially when they couldn't fight back the tears.

"It was Dumbledore?!" Rose's grandmother finally yelled, "He gave this... this thing to my son?!"

"Molly let them finish" her husband tried to contain her but he was quite stunned too.

Rose nodded, "Uncle Harry was furious, he talked to his portrait you know, Dumbledore's portrait" a few gasps echoed about what that meant, "I think Professor Dumbledore didn't knew that it could had that effect, Uncle Harry said that he hadn't seen that kind of regret on a portrait before"

"And... being with Hermione will stop him from using this?" Uncle Bill asked, "We won't let it get to his hands, this has nothing to do with Hermione"

"Of course we won't!" Rose's grandmother yelled again, "He can keep that stupid artefact! that whole Dumbledore's mission thing is nonsense too! they were underage! he could put these mission on aurors from the Order!"

"The mission was needed, that's what Uncle Harry says," Rose answered, "Without it he wouldn't have been able to kill Voldemort"

Rose's grandmother flinched a bit, "Well someone else could have done it!"

"It had to be them," Hugo added and when he saw his grandmother so altered he lowered his voice, "That's what they say"

It took a long time for things to calm down but when they eventually managed to understand a few of their words things got easier. The twins returned from the shop at that moment and after saying that no one passed by they were told the whole story again.

"It's not that I don't want Ickle Ronnie and Hermione together," one of them started, "But again, how does our dearest sister-in-law fit in all this? "

"Gred!" the other twin added moving his eyes to Fleur.

"Oh yeah sorry, I meant one of our dearest sisters-in-law" Uncle Bill rolled his eyes while Fleur smiled.

Rose saw the exchange for a bit and when she was sure that it was over she proceed to explain all about her father leaving her mother and Uncle Harry behind and how that deluminator brought him back. She didn't knew that until her mother explained it a week before, no one wanted to say a thing about it ever but they thought that Rose and Hugo should understand what caused the whole thing. Her mother and Uncle Harry kept wards so her father kept using that light on him a lot.

"He left them!?" Uncle Bill was dumbfounded as well as everybody else.

"He didn't meant to! it was that thing! their mission! It messed with his head!" Hugo insisted.

"I 'aven't 'eard of any object doing somezing like zat?" asked Fleur

"We don't know what altered him, they didn't tell us. They just said it was something from their mission!"

"I don't want to hear a thing about that mission ever again!" Rose's grandmother shouted.

"Molly dear, that thing seemed to be required for the war to be over. Maybe if we can explain to Albus that this artefact is dangerous we could fix everything to the way it was before!"

"I don't care about the way it was before! I don't want them risking their lives like that! I want that mission to disappear!"

The arguments continued and Rose and Hugo exchanged worried looks, they didn't know where all of this would be going. They asked more things about the mission of course but the truth was that Rose and Hugo didn't know much. When they decided to come back they only knew that if their father was with their mother there was no way of him getting his hands on that deluminator, they were convinced that he wouldn't leave her like that. A couple of nights Rose even heard her mother crying about it, saying to no one that she should had never let him go.

Yes, her father wouldn't need a deluminator if he had her mother. She was sure of that. Her mother wouldn't have let him.

Taking the deluminator away entirely was never the plan though, Rose had thought that removing the deluminator completely would affect the future too much. She had initially believed that matching her parents together sooner was less relevant to the mission than an artefact mentioned on Dumbledore's will. Although as soon as they got back it became clear that there was no way of proceeding without altering other stuff, she realized that in the new state of things it was way easier to stop their father from getting the deluminator at all.

Rose wondered if the headmaster would agree to that, but even if he did agree to keep the deluminator to himself Rose didn't know what to do next. She didn't had a plan to return, as far as she knew time turners only went one way and there was no going back. Everybody knowing who they were was going to affect things much more than any deluminator and her grandmother was already opposing a mission that needed to happen, she really hadn't thought this through.

"We'll have to leave this for later," Rose's grandfather finally said, "I'll need to talk to Albus about this deluminator first, maybe we could get to an agreement."

"Are you going to call him?"

"Not now, maybe tomorrow. Or maybe he calls first. This has been hard for all of us but we are a family and we will come out with the best option for us"

Everyone agreed and they soon moved to lighter topics. Rose felt some of the sadness in the room lift when they mentioned Uncle Percy, she knew that he had some trouble with the family at the moment but she never knew that it had been so big, he not talking to the family at all took her by surprise. It was a nice thing telling everybody that he returns but got mixed opinions when she said that it would still take him another year to do so.

"Maybe we could get Uncle Percy here sooner" Hugo said a few hours later on their way upstairs, "They say that he wanted to return for some time before"

"Hugo we are not changing things, remember? We had done plenty of wrong already"

"Well, if we happen to change things either way, if things can't go back. Can we try it then?"

Rose snorted, "This is not something to take lightly. We will fix things but as close as possible to the way they were before!"

"All right" Hugo said grudgingly.

The bushy haired girl said good night to her brother at her Aunt Ginny's bedroom. There as she saw him walking up the stairs she wondered what was yet to come. She wanted to be hopeful, Dumbledore wouldn't want to be the one causing her father's death, he couldn't. The headmaster had to agree to let that small part of the future changed, he had to let the deluminator away and hope that everything else remained the same. But what if not?

Rose's heart shrank worried about what could happen if the headmaster refused. Would the Weasleys be forever out of the Order?

Her mother had always said that time was not a toy, she would be very mad for what they done so far but they were already here, they had already changed things surely. Rose made up her mind then, if the headmaster didn't want to help she would find a way to save her family without messing with the future, she had to find a way.


	3. The Agreement

**Some people had pointed out that this story is pretty similar to one from Vance McGill... I hadn't read that one so I didn't got the idea from there. Have some things planned here so hope it is a lot different to that one. I don't think I'll read Vance's for now, scared of grabbing things from there unconsciously.  
**

* * *

**HUGO**

For the most part of the day Hugo's grandfather was absent, he didn't had to contact Professor Dumbledore at all since the old wizard hurried to arrange a meeting way before Hugo woke up.

Breakfast was calmed but way more joyful than the previous day, Uncle Fred and Uncle George were in good mood now and tried to make them laugh as much as possible. It appeared as if all the stories didn't made them justice. Hugo was fascinated with their ways and the whole talk about joke products but his grandmother didn't want them to fill Hugo's head with such things.

Rose was pretty serious and Hugo know why. Every time he saw her the smile from his face vanished and he remembered all what they had done wrong, even so he tried to distract himself, there was not much he could do to fix it at the moment. He tried to cheer his sister up though, they had to focus on the good things.

Hugo knew it was wrong but he couldn't stop feeling a lot better every time he remembered that his father was alive at that moment, he was somewhere at Hogwarts and with a little bit of luck they would be able to keep him away from that deluminator. Rose shouldn't bash herself all day because of what they had done, they needed to think in what they were going to do now that they had done it.

Aunt Fleur was very kind to them and it really surprised Hugo that his grandmother didn't seem to like her that much, as far as he remembered they were very close, always moving around in the kitchen. It was very hard at the beginning with her accent and all, it had almost vanished in the future so it took him by surprise when he first heard her. On the other hand Uncle Bill was different, he was trying to help and asking how they were doing but he also looked at them seriously, he was tense and seemed to be wondering if their presence there was something good or something bad.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Hugo said some time around noon, he was lying on the camp bed in his father's room while Rose walked around looking at the stuff there.

"Grandpa and Professor Dumbledore?" she asked turning to her brother.

"Yeah"

"Don't know, maybe Dumbledore is trying to convince grandpa that the best thing to do is erase everybody's memories"

"They wouldn't do that right?" Hugo said raising his voice just a little, "I mean we are already here and... they can't. Where would that put us? Would he try to lock us somewhere while the war finishes? He didn't seem like he can send us back."

"I guess that's why he wanted to look at the time turner"

"Rubbish! Grandpa wouldn't agree with that and you heard him, he wants to help us with Dad"

Rose rolled her eyes, "He didn't say that. He said that he still had to think about what to do with what we said, he knows it was wrong too"

Hugo snorted, he stared at the ceiling and soon found that the silence was unnerving. "What if we write to him?" he finally asked trying to sound casual.

"Who? Dad? Are you nuts!? Grandpa said that-"

"All right, all right, it was just an idea."

They remained silent for a moment, Hugo was frowning and trying to think on a way to avoid being erased like that. Albus Dumbledore was the greatest wizard alive, he didn't want the man going after them, wiping them from the memories of everybody they knew. Could the Burrow's wards keep him away? What would he do if grandpa didn't agree with him? Hugo's parents were at Hogwarts at that moment, Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny were too, they were all very close to the headmaster and they didn't had an idea of what was going on.

Then Hugo heard a relief sigh from his sister and the bed was pressed at the point where Rose was surely sitting now.

"Look, I miss him too ok? Lets see what grandpa says first" Rose said with a smile.

Hugo nodded, "But if Dumbledore insists on wiping our memories or in giving that ruddy deluminator to Dad we'll contact him then, right?"

"Maybe, but not by a letter! that's way too dangerous"

A confused look came out of Hugo which Rose didn't miss, "The are Death Eaters out there, Tom Riddle is too. We cannot risk an owl to be intercepted, it would be very bad if they find out about us"

Hugo's eyes opened wide, he hadn't think about that. Voldemort was alive and he had completely forgotten about it with the whole Dumbledore thing. If he found out he couldn't imagine what problems may arise, he would surely try to change things if he knew he was defeated last time. Their presence there was turning more problematic with each new possibility.

"Ok" Hugo finally answered.

It was not until dinner that Hugo's grandfather returned. He looked serious and asked everyone to the living room, there he told them everything he had discussed with Professor Dumbledore. The headmaster had insisted on erasing their memories of course but Hugo's grandfather had refused, the surprising part though was that the old wizard said he had a proposal and that he wanted to meet them the next day to talk about it. Hugo exchanged a look with his sister nervously.

If they agreed with that then the headmaster could throw the memory charms himself. He maybe thought it through and decided that he made a mistake not confronting the Weasleys before.

"You said no of course" Hugo's grandmother said and when she didn't got an answer from her husband she insisted, "Arthur...?"

"I said I was going to think about it"

"But you know what that man wants! I won't let him take my grandchildren from us!"

Rose grabbed Hugo's hand there, she was pretty nervous too. What should they do? Should they ran away?

"His proposal was reasonable"

"Reasonable!? that's what he wants us to believe-"

"Molly please, let me finish," when the room was silent he continued, "He says that not all of us have to be here, he said that someone can take them somewhere else while we talk. So we could have someone knowing the truth out there as a guarantee"

Hugo saw his grandmother nervous, she was thinking it through trying to find something to protest about. He was confused of course, where would they go? Would they be safe or was it all a trap to get them out in the open.

"I was looking at a house," said Uncle Bill suddenly, "You know for us after the wedding, it belongs to an aunt and was wondering if buying it from her. I still have some doubts but maybe I could finish the deal and take them there, put it under Fidelius charm"

"Shell Cottage?" asked Rose.

"Yes, you... know?"

"Buy it, you will love it"

Uncle Bill looked troubled but he ended up smiling as he turned to his fiancé, "Guess we have the house"

"I still don't trust him, not with this..." Hugo's grandmother insisted.

"He also said that he was bringing Professor McGonagall and that both would leave their wands before entering the house"

That convince the woman and made Hugo and Rose more relaxed but the argument continued, even so by the time they headed to the table they had all decided to hear the old wizard at least. They needed to get to a common ground if they were still going to follow their actions against Tom Riddle.

The next afternoon Uncle Bill came announcing that the deal was closed and that he had already put all the required charms on it. Hugo's grandfather arranged the meeting with Professor Dumbledore to the next day then. When Uncle Fred and Uncle George came for dinner that night all the plans were set, Hugo and Rose were going to be with Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur at Shell Cottage while everybody else met the headmaster, that included of course closing the joke shop for a few hours.

Hugo went to bed very nervous and surprisingly when he was woken up the next morning he didn't felt sleepy at all. They had their breakfast quite early and as soon as they reached the table Rose found herself covered by the arms of Hugo's grandmother.

"Happy Birthday dear" the woman said.

Rose looked stunned, "How did you..." then she turned to Hugo who was grinning at her.

"We will have a special dinner and a cake in the afternoon of course, everything will be fine I promise."

A smile formed slowly on Rose's face and she embraced her grandmother and then her brother, everybody around was also quick to congratulate her.

"Guess we'll have to find a way to test later if the trace was lifted from her wand but now we have to hurry" said Uncle Bill.

After breakfast they apparated to Shell Cottage, it was a nasty sensation but even before opening his eyes the smell of fresh sea soothed Hugo. It was exactly as he remembered, at least in the outside because when they first opened the door they found the place completely empty.

"There's an old table around here, not much else though. It was used mostly as a holiday house" said Uncle Bill.

"It is perfect" Aunt Fleur answered with a wide smile.

The rest of the morning they helped Uncle Bill to clean the house a bit, Hugo got the worse part of course because they were going soft with Rose because of her birthday. He didn't complain, the cleaning relaxed him and moved his thoughts away from that meeting that his grandparents were going to have with Albus Dumbledore.

After eating some quick sandwiches as lunch they walked out of the house, exploring, Uncle Bill told them to not go too far away since the Fidelius charm had its limits.

Hugo sat on the sand a few yards away from the moving sea, Rose joined him shortly. For a long time they didn't said a word, they just enjoyed the sound of the wave caressing the wet sand. There was no way that the headmaster could reached them so far from the Burrow and under the Fidelius charm, he never planned of setting a trap which made it more intriguing the proposal that he would be saying to Hugo's grandparents.

"I'm sure grandpa won't agree if it is not a good proposal" said Rose finally, she was still staring at the sea.

"Guess so" answered Hugo on a lazy voice.

"Mum won't let him agree if it isn't" a third voice said calmly behind them, it was Uncle Bill. Standing up at their back he looked quite different, he was tall and handsome and his bright red hair was gracefully moved by the wind, the absence of the scar gave his appearance an air of youth that his personality usually had. Rose and Hugo smiled at him as he squat down behind them.

Together they stared at the sea, thinking on what was yet to come, wondering if they would change things and if that change would be for the better of for the worse.

"You were right, I already love this place" the young man said with a smile.

"Told you" Rose said.

"You know I think I am going to like you two, maybe more than your parents," he said laughing, "Am I a good uncle?"

"The best" said Rose as her bushy red hair waved in the wind.

"Good to know, I'm here for what ever you need, hope you know that. I was a bit shaken at the begging, I do believe you did wrong but now you're here I am on your side. I won't let anything bad happen to Ron."

Hugo felt very happy at those words, as if his burden had become suddenly lighter.

A white and blue light came then and when it reached them Uncle Bill stood up. The light was a patronus, a weasel.

"We're over. Everything all right. They left, bring Rose and Hugo." said the weasel with the calmed voice of Hugo's granfather.

Hugo exchanged a worried look with Rose and then with Uncle Bill who smiled, "Don't worry, patronus can't be faked. Lets get Fleur"

They walked back to the cottage and once they told Fleur about the message they hurried to apparate back at the Burrow. Uncle Bill had said that there was nothing to fear but still he went alone first and then he returned for them saying that everything was safe. Hugo's grandparents, Uncle Fred and Uncle George were still at the living room, there were no signs of Albus Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall.

Hugo's grandfather asked them to take a seat and then he spoke loud and clear, "We heard the proposal, it is a good one since apparently they are in a hurry. Two new beds had appeared at Hogwarts and the registers have been modified."

Rose and Hugo were stunned, "Two beds?" asked Uncle Bill in the same state.

"The school is sensing Rose and Hugo in some way, they can't hide it for too long unless they put someone in there."

"He doesn't really want to- ... he wouldn't... he should have better options"

Hugo's grandfather smiled, "He doesn't, he doesn't want Voldemort finding out and he can't pull two students out of his hat."

"What about polyjuice?" asked Uncle Bill.

"Apparently he doesn't want two adults in his school, besides the potion is very lengthy and costly and the Order needs it for other affairs. They don't have enough for two people using it for that long either"

"That changes things..." Uncle Bill said.

"Sure it does"

"I- I don't get it" Hugo said, "Two beds in Hogwarts because of us? how is he going... he's is not thinking that we...?" Hugo started looking at his sister.

"I think he is" said Rose still shocked.

"'e needs zem" said Fleu quite surprised.

Hugo's grandfather nodded, "In part that's why Minerva was here, she's informed of everything. They want you two to go to Hogwarts, on fake identities of course."

"Going back to Hogwarts? With Mum and Dad?" asked Hugo incredulously, he still couldn't believe it, he thought it was going to be much more complicated.

"Yes but they want you to promise that you won't contact any of them, to keep the future as good as possible. He has been very troubled of causing all of this, he promised to check on the deluminator and take it out of the mission he is-"

Hugo's grandmother snorted, "Again with that stupid mission! I didn't agree with that part"

"We'll see about that later honey, at least he promised to put the deluminator apart so Rose and Hugo won't really need to contact their parents." the man said to his wife and then turned to his grandchildren, "You would have to stay in Hogwarts or on Shell Cottage during the holidays but he said that if we haven't been able to send you back by the end of the war we could tell your parents everything. He wants the time turner though."

Rose and Hugo stared at each other with troubled expressions, it looked like a fair proposal, it didn't just save their father but it also was the best option to keep the future unchanged but still... it was complicated. How could they spent so much time that close to the people they loved but without approaching them, without a hug from their father?

"I know what this means for you but it looks like something better than we expected"

"Even better if we can put a few products on your trunks..." one of the twins said winking at them.

"Fred! this is serious!"

"There's something that's still worrying me," said Uncle Bill, "How are we sure that they will keep their word about the deluminator or that Rose and Hugo will be all right there?"

"Albus promised to do an unbreakable vow" said Hugo's grandfather soberly.

"That will be useless!" Rose said quickly, "He's already dying!"

Hugo's grandmother gasped as everybody else's eyes opened wide, "He... is?" asked their grandfather.

Rose and Hugo nodded, "His hand, you saw it, it's cursed and there's nothing he can do about it. I know we shouldn't talk about the future but I thought... the vow and..."

Many serious faces spread on the room, some of them worried.

"It was all right Rose, I'll talk with him, we have some points to clarify either way"

"What points?" asked Uncle Bill.

"He wanted our memories erased while the war was over but we refused of course. That was mostly our main concern and I think that Minerva was with us, he said he would think about it."

"Well he surely has to agree, he needs them in those two beds if he doesn't want questions being asked."

They continued arguing and then Rose and Hugo decided to say that Hogwarts was going to be under Voldermort's control after Dumbledore's death and that might compromise them either way. Everybody was shocked specially Hugo's grandmother but after trying to ask more about it Hugo's grandfather asked her to drop it, he said that he would also mention it to the headmaster since they needed to guarantee their safety.

More points were discussed and by the end of the day everybody had agreed with the plan, if the headmaster accepted their petitions they would go forward with the plan. Hugo was terrified, he didn't know what seeing his father again would feel like specially since he would be barely allowed to look at him.

Hugo noticed that his sister was troubled too, she appeared to be excited but also worried. Too many things could go wrong and he didn't know what the headmaster will ask of them to guarantee their silence. He also wondered of what could happen if they broke some of the rules, not really intentionally but if they got caught by accident, how would Dumbledore react to that?

With those worries they went to bed. Hugo had a nightmare that day of his parents and Uncle Harry following around the school and he resisting to tell them, Dumbledore ended up finding out in the dream and he vanished them away. Her sister was sent to a different place and he just screamed for her, then out of nowhere he saw his father dying either way.

He woke up sweating, it had been an awful nightmare and he was not used to them. He needed to go to the bathroom, put some water on his face and calm down. On his way down he went to look at Rose, he hoped that she was awake so they could talk a bit but when she reached and opened the door slightly he didn't got any response. He opened the door a little more and there he saw her, still asleep but bashing around on her bed, she was having a nightmare too.

Hugo woke her up and after a moment they were both hugging each other and talking about the situation. They missed everybody, not only their father but their mother too and everybody else. They could cause so many tragedies just by being there, they should had never left.

The next morning breakfast was silent and tense, everybody was in deep thought but that was soon over once Hugo's father rushed into the kitchen. He had been away talking with the headmaster but as soon as Hugo saw him with his light smile he knew what was going to happen.

"He accepted," he said, "You are going to Hogwarts."


	4. A New First Day

**HUGO**

It was a real shame to miss the trip to Diagon Alley, Hugo would have loved to see the shops as they were right now. He wondered how much different the joke shop would look with both of his uncles in it.

Unfortunately the redhead boy had to remain in the Burrow with his sister while all the essential things for Hogwarts were brought to them. They were not supposed to be seen, someone could notice them and maybe associate them with their parents.

Rose suggested at one point that they could make the trip in their new identities but the idea was refused too, someone could recognize them later as the new kids at Hogwarts and it would be very hard to explain why they did their shopping trip with the Weasleys. In fact the school supplies were bought in different trips made by Hugo's grandparents or his uncles, they didn't want to be seen buying a whole new set of supplies either.

They spent the weekend at the Burrow mostly hanging around with their uncles. They had a lot of attention of course, in the new situation they were the only grandchildren of the family. Uncle Bill was more comfortable around them now and they heard him laugh and smile just as they could remember, it appeared that under the hard face he gave them the first time there was the same cool uncle that they had always known.

Uncle Fred and Uncle George brought a few things from the shop also but they were very careful of not letting their mother see those. Rose frowned and for a moment Hugo thought that she was going to give them away, she didn't but she didn't want any trick joke product either. Hugo smiled and didn't refuse his part, he packed a few trick wands, a pair of extendable ears and some other things too.

"Sticky Trainers? What do you need those for?" Rose said later that day as they were checking their trunks.

Hugo shrugged, "Dunno, will find out later" he said taking the trainers from his sister and putting them in the small old trunk that his grandparents got for him, then he grabbed a Spell Checking Quill from the bag that his uncles brought and put it in there too.

Rose snorted, "Mum wouldn't like you messing around, you know that. Leave that folly to James." when she said that her face sobered. Rose had been very touchy with James topic, even after all their arguments she really missed James as much as the rest of their cousins and now it was possible that they wouldn't see them again. Hugo was really affected about that too but still he had been trying to cheer her up.

"I won't do anything like that. I just want to check these out, these are the first versions of many of their products. Uncle George doesn't even make some of these anymore"

Rose didn't say anything more, she walked to the bed and she lay there, just staring at the ceiling. She had already finished packing so she didn't had anything more to do. As well as his sister Hugo had been a little uncomfortable with his grandparents getting all this stuff, it appeared as if they were struggling more with money right now than in the future but they didn't had their parents around to pay for their things.

"Do you think that they'll find out?" said Hugo thinking on the day that was awaiting them at Hogwarts.

"No," said Rose, "not if we are careful"

"Oh"

Rose frowned, "You shouldn't be thinking about doing anything Hugo. I know it will be hard seeing them and not talking to them but we agreed to this, Dumbledore will do his part with the deluminator, we don't need to do anything"

"Yeah I know" Hugo answered unconvincingly.

They had a big dinner that day, their grandmother prepared as much food on the table as on Rose's birthday. She was emotional and said that she would really miss them, of course she stormed them with tons of recommendations. They hugged her tightly and promised to take care of themselves.

After giving their goodbyes to their uncles and Aunt Fleur they went to bed promising to write often.

In the morning Professor McGonagall came to pick them, they were not supposed to be seen with any Weasley after all and a floo connection to Hogwarts from the Burrow could be suspicious on the Ministry. The old witch caught their attention immediately, in the future she was the headmistress and Hugo couldn't remember her looking so young, or as young as an old witch could be.

McGonagall smiled at them and assured that she was going to be looking after them.

"All right, now let me work a bit on your appearance. It won't hurt and you would have to keep visiting me each day to reinforce the spell"

Rose and Hugo nodded and the witch started moving her wand around them, Hugo only felt a little tickles on his face but nothing more.

"I think that would be enough" McGonagall said and not far away their grandfather nodded summoning a small mirror from a stand in the living room.

As soon as they looked at themselves Rose gasped, she had straight hair now and it was totally black, her eyes were black too and the freckles were gone. Hugo's hair was just as black but not as straight as Rose's, he noticed that his nose was a bit different and his eyes were dark brown. He turned to his sister incredulously, paying attention he could still notice Rose there but anyone giving just a quick glimpse would not see any association with their mother. Something similar happened with Hugo, their features were modified a bit but it was enough to make them look very different.

"I can't do much with these simple spells, more complex changes of appearance require the use of potions and we don't have enough ingredients to be preparing those daily"

"I think it will be enough Minerva" said Hugo's grandfather.

"Wallace, that will be the last name that we will use for you. You can keep the first names to avoid confusions. Professor Dumbledore is already working in keeping the records altered. No one should know that you are here unless they know what they're looking for in those records." Professor McGonagall said and they nodded.

Hugo Wallace, that would take some time to get used to.

A few more hugs later they exited the Burrow and apparated to Hogsmeade with another unpleasant sensation.

"You can trust me with anything of course, my office is always opened. I will expect you every morning before breakfast, the spells should last for two or three days but I'll reinforce them daily to avoid accidents. I will be teaching you to do it yourselves." McGonagall said, "The official version is that you are home schooled so leveling you up for classes should be a fitting excuse for these meetings"

Hugo and Rose nodded.

"I know that you have doubts in this but I'll be looking after you. I care about your parents and even in the present circumstances is nice meeting you." the old witch added giving Hugo some kind of calm. They smiled at her but that smile faded with her next comment, "However that doesn't mean that I approve in any way what you did, I must say I am disappointed. Hope you change my opinion on your judgement." she said levitating their trunks as they walked towards the main gates, they nodded lowering their heads.

All the way to the castle they received stares from the people around but nothing major, just a few curious looks about the unknown kids that Professor McGonagall was walking through the grounds. It was not hard to guess that they were new kids, specially with the trunks floating and all that.

Hugo was really nervous now, he was moving his eyes to every boy and girl in there thinking that any moment now he was going to see his father or his mother. The full weight of what were they doing and where they were hit him once they crossed the main doors.

The thing that Hugo wanted most in the world was to rush around the castle looking for them, he wanted to see them and talk freely for hours, he made a promise though and he didn't knew how things were going to turn out. He was afraid of not being strong enough to stick to the plan and putting him and Rose in trouble.

The boy turned to his side, the black haired Rose was moving her eyes enthusiastically but he couldn't understand her, for him everything looked the same. His sister didn't think so and kept pointing to small details that seemed older than she remembered, she kept whispering that this or that was probably reconstructed after the battle.

Next to the doors that led to the Great Hall a couple of students were standing up, they were waiting for them.

"Mr Ferguson," Professor McGonagall said addressing one of them, "This is Hugo Wallace, could you please escort him as we discussed?"

"Yes Professor"

The professor then turned to look at Hugo as if he was any normal student, "Mr Ferguson is Head Boy this year, he will led you to your chambers so you can put your belongings in order. If you hurry up you could still catch the Care of Magical Creatures class"

Hugo nodded and followed the lad towards the first flight of stairs. He turned back and saw a weird smile from his sister, the professor was already talking to the other student left behind.

"So you were home schooled?" the Ferguson guy asked after a while.

"Err... yeah!" Hugo answered promptly as a Hufflepuff boy passed running not far away, the boy was probably late for a class since Hugo noticed that he had a book on his hands and a panicked face.

"Hope you do well, some subjects here are quite demanding"

Hugo nodded quickly, "I hope"

The less he talked the better, he didn't know who could be a friend of his parents and try to introduce him to them. He better be as quiet as possible and very careful.

Sooner than expected Hugo was facing the fat lady portrait, "Dentes Leonis" the lad said and the portrait swung open, "That's the password now, you better remember it"

It was not easy to stand in the Gryffindor common room again and act as if he didn't knew it, Ferguson was even expecting some questions from him so he decided to get a look around and act fascinated. The red tapestries and the fireplace were mostly the same but a few things changed here and there, mostly decoration on the desks.

Once he left his trunk next to the new empty bed at the fourth years' chambers Ferguson walked him all the way back to the school grounds, at the border of the forest. There a group of people were already gathering around a huge man, Hugo smiled.

"Professor?"

"Emm? Wha' is it?" the voice of Hagrid resonated as he moved his big head between Ferguson and Hugo, "Oh, i's him then?"

"Yes, Hugo Wallace, the new boy"

"Tha's fine, yer can take a place with yer classmates. We're seein' nifflers." Hagrid said and Hugo walked shyly to the back of the group of fourth year Gryffindors as Ferguson returned to the castle.

Hugo quickly grabbed an eye with a girl with light dark skin but when she saw him the girl looked a away with a snort.

"Don't worry, that's Romilda, she does that with most of us." said a brown haired boy next to Hugo, "I'm Andrew by the way, Andrew Kirke" he finished extending his hand to Hugo.

The boy smiled and greeted him, "Hugo We-allace"

"So I heard, so home schooled or transfer?"

"Home schooled" Hugo was sticking to his story.

"Nice, we didn't know what was going on last week when that new bed appeared. Hope you like it in here, I reckon it gets complicated at times but some classes are fine really"

Hugo smiled and nodded, he didn't knew what else to do. Eventually he was going to have to talk to someone but as his grandparents said he had to be extremely careful; his parents, Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny were in Gryffindor too after all. At least they were were in separate years.

After a while the boy got lost in the class, he didn't talked as much as in his old class but Hagrid was already the teacher here so not much changed. They actually weren't that far in the class from where he had left, he could still remember his last class with Hagrid in the future, it had been just before the call to the headmistress office. Everything changed after that call.

He paled, he had forgotten that he was on Care of Magical Creatures class when he was summoned to be given the news.

Hugo tried to let that behind and focus on the current class now.

At lunch he sat with Andrew Kirke at the Gryffindor table but they didn't talk much. Rose was with the Ravenclaws not far away, Hugo noticed how lonely she was. Most of the Weasleys had ended up on Gryffindor but at least in the future she had company in Ravenclaw.

Hugo remembered a couple of days ago when they told their uncles that Rose was in Ravenclaw at which they were taken aback, they couldn't believe that there was a Weasley who was not in Gryffindor. Uncle Bill had been pretty surprised when they told him that Rose was not the only one, his daughter and first Weasley grandkid Victoire was also a Ravenclaw.

The boy continued eating but a moment later he caught his sister staring at the other side of the Gryffindor table with surprised eyes. Hugo didn't know what or who was she looking at since from where he was he couldn't distinguish the faces but then he heard her. She was far away so he couldn't get what she was talking about but that was definitely Aunt Ginny's voice.

Against what he had been told he tried desperately to get a look at her but all what he got was a long red mane, she was sitting next to a dark skinned boy but Hugo wasn't able to see anything more. She was very short.

"What?" Andrew asked but he then followed Hugo's eyes, "Oh, that's Ginny Weasley. Quite a stunner isn't she? Do you know her? It doesn't really matter actually, I heard she was going out with this Dean guy."

Hugo turned to him blushing and shaking his hands, "No, I'm not!... I mean... it's not that. I just thought that I saw her somewhere before, but I don't, not really." he mumbled.

Andrew raised an eyebrow at him and continued with his meal.

Then it happened. Hugo sighed, he moved his eyes away from the boy and without knowing it he ended up looking at the main doors. They were there, his parents and Uncle Harry were walking into the Hall arguing about something. For Hugo it seemed like time stopped, his heart was racing and his jaw dropped opened, he really had to fight back the need to walk to them just to hear his father's voice again.

With his now dark eyes he turned to the Ravenclaw table and there he saw Rose equally stunned, she had saw them too.

They were smaller of course but they were them in their younger bodies. Uncle Harry looked scrawnier and it was impressive how much looks he caught. Close to him he heard Romilda sighing at his uncle with puppy eyes and he felt pretty weird about it.

Hugo found himself hoping that the spells really worked because his mother looked almost exactly as Rose, they always looked alike but now that they were both of the same age Hugo could understand the impression his sister left on Uncle Bill and his grandfather when they first saw them.

His father was there too, arguing carelessly about something, he was calmed and cheerful as if nothing could ever happen to him. It was surreal and right then Hugo didn't care all the problems that they had caused traveling back, in that moment it was really worth it.

"You do know Harry Potter, don't you?" Andrew asked.

"Er... yeah, not in person of course but I have-"

"Do you want to? He is in our same house, I had barely talked to him but I have a friend at the Quidditch team that..."

"NO!" Hugo almost yelled and when he saw the surprise on the boy he tried to correct himself, "I mean, I don't think it would be a good idea, I wouldn't know what to say"

Andrew was looking at him as if he was some kind of weird bug, "If you say so" he moved to the other side and started talking to Martin, another fellow fourth year.

Lunch was very uneasy for Hugo since he kept throwing nervous looks to the other side of the table, he had to be subtle though because he didn't want Andrew to start asking questions about him. Even when Andrew talked again and they discussed Quidditch Hugo's thoughts were a few seats away.

The trio soon left and Hugo wished that he had raised from his seat earlier. He continued his day with the hope that he might see them later, maybe at the common room he could be closer to them without being noticed.

Charms was nice but once Hugo got into Defence Against Dark Arts he completely changed his opinion about Al's namesake. Severus Snape was a horrible person and he couldn't understand how everyone always talked so nice about him or why Al was named after him.

Hugo wasn't sure if it was because of being the new guy or because the black haired man knew who he was but he thought that he got the worse of the class. It appeared as if Professor Snape had an unstoppable desire of making his class miserable, specially to him.

At one point Andrew asked him about the movements of Hex-deflection and answering was probably his worst mistake of the day.

"Mr Wallace if my class is so uninteresting that you have to be discussing other matters I might be needing to put you on extra work. Five points from Gryffindor"

Andrew's mouth fell open, "I was just answering a-" Hugo started perplexed.

"You weren't asked to answer anything. Five point more from Gryffindor. Are you planning on losing more points Mr Wallace?" the teacher insisted, his greasy hair had a nasty look from where Hugo was sitting.

The now black haired boy was terrified, he never got that sort of attention in class, he was a good student and he always had good grades. "N-No sir"

"Fine then I believe an essay on Erklings and where to find them would help you regain your interest in this subject, 30 inches"

Hugo looked confused at his partners, everyone else seemed also surprised of the sudden attention that Hugo had got. "Yes sir" he answered not wanting to get himself into trouble.

He spent the rest of the class not even wanting to raise his eyes from the book.

Once outside Andrew and Martin surrounded him, "What's up with Snape? I mean he has always been a git but what does he got against you?" said Andrew.

"I-I- don't know" said Hugo honestly.

"Haven't you seen him before? Did you even looked at him in a ugly way?" Martin asked. Hugo shook his head

Hugo spent the whole afternoon in the library, Andrew and Martin were surprised of Hugo wanting to finish that right away since they didn't had Defence Against Dark Arts until Wednesday but they let it go. It had been a though choice between the library or the common room but at the end he decided that the common room would be crowded with people he didn't knew, besides if he was lucky he could see his mother in the library from far away.

On the bad side Hugo's mother was not there that day when he got to the library but fortunately he found Rose looking at something about Transfiguration. They talked about their days and Rose couldn't believe what Hugo told her about Snape, even so she promised to be careful the next day when she was going to have her first class with him.

They talked a bit more even after Hugo finished his essay but they did it mostly in whispers since the main topic was seeing their parents at lunch. They got some kind of attention but that was expected since they were the new students. Hugo wished that he could stay talking until late with his sister like he had done it in the Burrow but it was already time to go.

Dinner was uneventful and Hugo continued throwing looks across the table. This was going to be harder than he thought, he had been wanting to get close to them the whole time and it was only the first day. He didn't know how that would change later, maybe he could get used to see them from the distance.

As everybody walked back to their beds Hugo reached his sister to say goodbye, they exchanged a couple of words and when Hugo turned around he found that neither his parents or Andrew were at the Great Hall anymore.

He tried to follow them but then he remembered that he had left his essay at the table when he stood up to talk to Rose and he had to go back, by the time he reached the fat lady the stairs were empty and surely everyone from Gryffindor was already inside.

The boy tried to remember the password but when he did he wasn't able to say it, the portrait swung open and something hit him hard to the floor.

Hugo was sitting on the floor and shaking his head trying to understand what happened when he heard a voice that froze him.

"Hey watch it!"

His now dark eyes opened widely and he raised his head quickly to look at his father, he had stumbled too but he had remained standing. His hair was bright red and he was very tall, looking at him from such a short distance made him notice all the similarities he had with him. The appearance spells really needed to work.

"Well you shouldn't be walking out of the common room without looking where you're going" Hugo's jaw dropped as his mother came then, "Sorry, is this yours?" she said with a smile as she lifted the essay from the floor.

Hugo couldn't find his words so he just nodded looking really pale.

"Well he wasn't looking either" Hugo's father complained.

The bushy haired girl didn't seem to hear him, "You're the new boy right, saw your sister earlier. She's your sister right?" Hugo nodded again.

"Does he talk?"

Hugo's mother shot a nasty glare to the redhead and then tried to help Hugo to his feet, "What's your name?"

After a long effort the boy was able to answer blushing, "Hu-Hugo Weeallace"

His mother raised an eyebrow and stared at him for some time, Hugo found himself wishing that she couldn't find out. Eventually the girl smiled, "Professor McGonagall mentioned your last name and year to the prefects, Hugo is a lovely name." she said and then turned to the redhead on his back, "Which reminds me, we are late, we should had start our prefect patrols ten minutes ago. Hurry up Ron!"

"Lets go then"

Hugo's mother turned one last time to him already walking away, "I'm Hermione by the way and this is Ron, we're sixth year prefects so you come to us if you have a problem. Do you know the password?" she asked since the portrait had closed already.

"Dentes Leonis" Hugo said and the portrait swung again with the fat lady complaining about people opening and closing all the time. The bushy haired girl smiled and walked away.

"See ya!" Hugo's father said walking after her.

Hugo was shocked, days ago he couldn't believe that he would hear his father again and now he saw both of his parents as if tragedy had never hit them. He grinned happily as he hadn't in a long time.

"Are you coming or not?" asked the fat lady.

Hugo jumped on his place, "Yes, Yes!" and he hurried through the portrait hole.


	5. The Cursed Trip

**HARRY**

The trip to Hogsmeade was rough, Harry and his friends had to press their scarves tight against their faces to get some kind of protection from the harsh weather. The other students were not faring much better either, everyone around had to bend double against the bitter wind all the way to town. Harry soon found himself thinking that staying in the warmth of Gryffindor's common room might had been a better option.

They walked to Zonko's Joke Shop with their cheeks beyond numbness, they were looking for shelter as well as joke stuff but those hopes vanished as soon as they saw the place completely boarded up.

"Argh hell! are you serious?!" Ron whined shivering a little, Hermione was so cold that she didn't even wig at him for the language.

Harry snorted blaming everything to their bad luck but then Ron pointed to Honeydukes which was mercifully opened, they headed there without thinking it twice. Once in front of the shop Ron hurried to the knob but before he could reach it the door slammed opened against him and he was almost knocked to the freezy floor.

"Watch it out! that's two times now!" Ron shouted with a frown as he stumbled backwards. At the door Harry distinguished the new kid emerging from the shop, if he remembered correctly the black haired boy went by the name of Hugo Wallace. His sister Rose came behind him, she was smiling and had her hands full of sweets but as soon as she saw them her smile faded.

"So-Sorry, I didn't meant to." Hugo said to Ron, the boy turned to look at his sister with a frightened look.

Rose Wallace pulled from her brother's sleeve and after apologizing one last time they left the place. For some reason Harry found that exchange pretty odd.

Harry didn't know what to make of them, the Wallace siblings had been at Hogwarts for about a week now and this was the first time that Harry saw them this close. He didn't know how the whole home school worked, he was already in his sixth year and this was the first time he ever heard of a home schooled student, Harry wondered if it was normal for them to be that isolated.

"There's something wrong with those two" Ron blurted.

"They are new here, they're just trying to adapt, that's all" said Hermione but even so Harry saw her looking weirdly as the two siblings walked away.

"Sure, now are we going to go in or what?" Ron asked annoyed.

Harry followed Ron and Hermione to the warm toffe-scented air of Honeydukes. Unfortunately they found Professor Slughorn in there and Harry was asked again to join those weird meetings he was having. Apparently he was not the only one refusing to go either, according to the old professor the Wallaces were very keen students but they also avoided the next meeting when Slughorn asked them to pass by. Harry wondered if they had a valid reason to so or if they were just putting excuses out as he did.

It was pretty noticeable that Hermione found that queer too, he wondered what his friend was thinking of the new students. He didn't knew what but he got the feeling that there was something familiar about them.

Minutes later Harry suggested going to the Three Broomsticks and they headed out with fresh stock of extra-large sugar quills in their pockets. Outside they had a pretty unpleasant encounter with Mundungus Fletcher.

"He was nicking Sirius's stuff!" Harry burst out as soon as they were inside the Three Broomsticks. Mundungus was supposedly a member of the Order but after Sirius death the bandy-legged man started picking things from Grimmauld Place. Harry was red in anger.

"I know, Harry, but please don't shout, people are staring. Go and sit down, I'll get you a drink." whispered Hermione.

Harry was still fuming when Hermione returned to their table a few minutes later holding three bottles of butterbeer. The bushy haired girl tried to calm Harry down but it was very hard, he didn't know how the Order allowed him to do those things. He was definitely going to talk to Dumbledore about it, they had to stop that.

They were not having fun at that trip, Harry couldn't stop thinking on Sirius and those silver goblets, he hated those either way. Meanwhile Hermione kept moving her eyes questioningly between Ron and the bar after she caught him looking at Rosemerta

"Shall we call it a day and go back to school, then?" Hermione asked when they finished their drinks.

Harry and Ron nodded. As Harry reached for his cloak his thoughts strayed to Ginny, she was not around and that was surely because she was with Dean at Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, the place for happy couples. Harry scowled at the image.

They were about to follow Katie Bell and her friend out of the place when Ron snorted out loud, "Wonder if that new kid is waiting for me outside to hit me with the door"

Hermione frowned at him annoyed, "I don't see how is that possible since he is taking a drink with his sister right now"

At those words Harry turned around the place and indeed the Wallace siblings were at distant table, they were alone and staring at them but as soon as Harry put his eyes on them they looked away. Apparently they had been there for a while, maybe even before them.

"Have they been staring at us the whole time?" Ron asked.

Hermione only grimaced but that was a convincing enough. Ron put his cloak on and turned to Harry, "They must be looking at you mate, they must been hearing about you a lot before getting here" Harry rolled his eyes, he had to admit that it was probably that, he had got that a lot.

"I don't know Ron"

"What do you mean Hermione? They surely know about Harry since-" Ron answered.

"I mean that they are not looking at Harry, not only at him though. Look I know it's strange but I think I caught them staring at us sometimes, on the prefect duties"

Ron raised an eyebrow snorting, "They know that we're his friends, they're just weird"

It seemed like Hermione was willing to answer but she let it go and they exited the pub, Harry thought that she was thinking that Ron was right this time. The Wallaces felt weird because they didn't know them and they were new to the place, probably in a couple of weeks they will be blending with their classmates as everybody else.

They followed the High Street back to the castle, struggling with the sleet since the got out of the Three Broomsticks, the wind was so strong that at time Harry thought that it was shouting at them. Then they saw it.

Around the corner Harry saw something raising in the air, it was a person but the weather didn't allow them to see who it was. A scream came, a yell of pure anguish, Harry and his friends rushed around the corner looking up but the figure had fallen to the floor already. Harry rushed to take the sleet out of his glasses to get a better view and when he was a few feet away he halted in disbelief.

Two figures were over the snow, two girls, one holding the other. Harry recognized them then as they rushed through the deserted landscape, Katie Bell's friend was holding Harry's team partner who was trashing desperately in the girl hands, when the girl saw them she yelled, tears covered her eyes.

"I don't know what happened, we got to help her!" Katie's friend said to them.

"Stay there!" Harry shouted at the others over the howling wind, "I'm going to get help!"

Harry ran towards the school, he didn't knew what happened but he could guess that the figure he saw floating around the corner had been Katie. His heart was racing fast, he didn't know what could cause that chilling effect on her, all he could think of was the image of the girl trashing agains the floor. If they had been just a few seconds sooner they could had tried to catch her, he didn't know if she heard herself on the way down to the floor.

The only thing that he was sure of was that Katie had been cursed.

Fortunately he crashed against Hagrid pretty soon and he brought him back to the place where Katie was still writhing and screaming on the ground; Ron, Hermione, and Katie's friend were all trying to quiet her.

"Get back!" shouted Hagrid, "Lemme see her!"

"Something's happened to her!" sobbed the Katie's friend, "I don't know what —"

In a swift movement Hagrid raised Katie from the floor and carried her back to the castle, sprinting as fast as he could. Harry thought he saw her arm at a weird angle, probably from the fall.

"It's Leanne, isn't it?" said Hermione then to Katie's friend and the girl nodded.

"Did it just happen all of a sudden, or — ?"

"It was when that package tore," sobbed Leanne, pointing at the now sodden brown-paper package on the ground, which had split open to reveal a greenish glitter. Ron bent down, his hand out-stretched, but Harry seized his arm and pulled him back.

"Don't touch it!" Harry yelled but he was not the only one.

"Don't!" another voice yelled at the same time behind them. Harry turned and saw the Wallace siblings standing a few feet away staring with frightened eyes. Rose had been the one to shout.

"Did you saw it?" Hermione asked them. The boy, Hugo, shocked his head.

"We just got here" said Rose.

Hermione raised an eyebrow, "Why did you yell then?"

"I-I- don't know- I just..." Rose mumbled but she was interrupted.

"I have seen this before," said Harry still moving his green eyes between the Wallace and the brown package. An ornate opal necklace was visible out of the package, "It was on display in Borgin and Burkes ages ago. The label said it was cursed. Katie must have touched it." He looked up at Leanne, who had started to shake uncontrollably. "How did Katie get hold of this?"

"Well, that's why we were arguing. She came back from the bathroom in the Three Broomsticks holding it, said it was a surprise for somebody at Hogwarts and she had to deliver it. She looked all funny when she said it. ... Oh no, oh no, I bet she'd been Imperiused and I didn't realize!"

Leanne shook with renewed sobs. Hermione patted her shoulder gently.

"She didn't say who'd given it to her?"

"No... she wouldn't tell me... and I said she was being stupid and not to take it up to school, but she just wouldn't listen and-nd I-I tried to grab it... and — and —"

Leanne let out a wail of despair.

"We'd better get up to school," said Hermione, her arm still around Leanne. "We'll be able to find out how she is."

Harry hesitated for a moment, then pulled his scarf from around his face and, ignoring Ron's gasp, he carefully covered the necklace in it and picked it up.

"We'll need to show it to Madam Pomfrey," he said.

With one last suspicious look at the Wallaces Hermione took Leanne up the road and everyone else followed them, the Wallaces from a very long distance and with their eyes fixed on the ground. Harry was thinking furiously but not about them, there was something much more important at the moment. They had just entered the grounds when he spoke, unable to keep his thoughts to himself any longer.

"Malfoy knows about it, the necklace. It was in a case at Borgin and Burkes four years ago, I saw him looking at it while I was hiding from him and his dad. This is what he was buying that day when we followed him! He remembered it and he went back for it!"

"I — I dunno, Harry," said Ron hesitantly. "Loads of people go to Borgin and Burkes... and didn't that girl say Katie got it in the girls' bathroom?"

"She said she came back from the bathroom with it, she didn't necessarily get it in the bathroom itself—"

"McGonagall!" said Ron warningly.

Harry looked up. Sure enough, Professor McGonagall was hurrying down the stone steps through swirling sleet to meet them.

"Hagrid says you four saw what happened to Katie Bell — upstairs to my office at once, please!..." then she stopped widening their eyes, she was looking behind Harry, "Mr and Miss Wallace, you were there too?"

"Yeah but we didn't, we just-" Hugo started but his sister stopped him.

"Yes but we didn't saw much professor" Rose continued.

McGonagall looked at them studiously, like trying to find out something, "Doesn't matter, I want all of you at my office and- What's that you're holding, Potter?"

"It's the thing she touched," said Harry.

"Good lord," said Professor McGonagall, looking alarmed as she took the necklace from Harry, "No, no, Filch, they're with me!" she added hastily, as Filch came shuffling eagerly across the entrance hall holding his Secrecy Sensor aloft, "Take this necklace to Professor Snape at once, but be sure not to touch it, keep it wrapped in the scarf!"

At McGonagall's office Leanne explained everything to the old witch, it was basically the same story that she had already told them. After that Harry approached her, wanting to share his theory with her but the Wallaces were still there looking scared. Professor McGonagall noticed it and asked the siblings to wait outside.

Harry, Ron and Hermione argued in front of the Professor as soon as they were alone, Harry really believed that it was Malfoy the one behind the necklace, it couldn't be anybody else. However he got a lot of resistance to the idea, specially from Professor McGonagall who even when he seemed to be considering his words ended up putting them aside. Apparently Malfoy had spent the day in Hogwarts which put him pretty far from Katie, Harry didn't know how to explain that but some part of him still was sure that Malfoy was the culprit.

Professor McGonagall dismissed them and to their surprise she asked to question the Wallace siblings. It was pretty weird, they had seen the less of it and the professor knew that, they had told her. Harry didn't know what the old witch thought that they could tell her but it was surely not much.

Hermione was uneasy too, she wondered about Rose shouting at Ron about the package but Ron said to let it go, it was probably nothing. Besides it was not hard to imagine that the package could be dangerous with a girl shaking desperately next to it.

On the other hand Harry wanted to stop talking about them, all the wanted then was his friends support in the whole Malfoy thing. He was sure that Draco was the one who put the necklace there in some way and they didn't seem to believe him, specially Hermione.

Back at the common room no one seemed to know what had just happened but even there Harry didn't let it go, it had been a lousy plan since many things could had gone wrong with the necklace thing but that only supported Harry's theory. Malfoy was sloppy and not a deep thinker at all, Hermione snorted and took Ron out on prefect duties.

The next day Katie was transferred to St Mungo's, the curse was very complicated and they needed to attend her, fortunately the fall didn't had any major problems besides a broken bone which was already fixed. The school was tense, they couldn't believe that something like that had happened on a Hogsmeade trip.

The whole day Harry tried to insist talking about Malfoy but every time that Hermione noticed him going that way she changed the subject. Harry was very frustrated by that but he didn't change his mind. He was determined to uncovered the Slytherin as soon as possible.

In the night, when Ron and Hermione were out patrolling he went back to bed. The Gryffindor common room was packed with people but most of them were serious, specially Katie's friends. The image of the girl trashing on the snowy floor haunted Harry. No one was around at the dormitories, it felt unreal thinking about the day before when Ron had been floating by his ankle on the bed.

Harry walked to his trunk with a clear idea in mind but he got something completely different from what he was looking for, he found something that he couldn't explain.


	6. The Fake Wallaces

**HARRY**

For a moment Harry thought about staying on bed until Ron returned, surely his friend could explain what he was seeing now, however it would take a while for the redhead to get back from his prefect duties and Harry wasn't willing to wait that long.

In a hurry he took his cloak from the trunk and gave a last glimpse to the piece of paper in his hands, just to make sure he had seen it correctly. Moments before he had been skimming the Marauders' Map with the hope of finding Malfoy and maybe proof that Katie's accident was his doing. Malfoy was nowhere to be seen though, it appeared as if he had vanished from the school, his name was probably lost in the crowd of students. There was something that caught his attention then, a last name.

Harry moved his eyes to the point in the map where the library was, the words displayed there seemed to be mocking him. Weasley, that was what the map said and it never lied. Harry was quite confused since the words were not attached to Ron or Ginny but to two other names that he couldn't remember hearing in Hogwarts until recently.

"It doesn't make any sense" said Harry to himself as he stared at the moving tags that were holding the names of Hugo Weasley and Rose Weasley.

The new students were Wallace, were those dots pointing at them? It couldn't be, the map had never failed like that. Also Ron never mentioned any other Weasley being in Hogwarts, he would surely know if that was the case.

Harry put the map aside for a moment and he made his decision, he threw the invisibility cloak over his shoulders and walked slowly out of the room, he didn't want to be disturbed on his way there. It wouldn't take more than an hour for everyone to be back at their common rooms and he needed answers before that.

The way down was quick and without major interruptions, he had the map under the cloak so he was able to walk through the less crowded staircases without crashing with anyone. It was not long until he was peeking inside the library, inside only a few students were left and most of them seemed to be standing up already. Without thinking about it his eyes traveled to a far table, Hugo and Rose Wallace were talking quietly quietly over a couple of heavy books, just the two of them as he expected.

Harry was about to step inside when the siblings stood up and took care of their books, they walked calmly towards the main door not even noticing Harry when they passed right in front of him. He quickly looked at the map and with astonishment he swept his eyes back and forth between the dots in the paper and the Wallaces who were now walking away from him. The dots he was looking at belonged to them, in the map the names of Hugo and Rose Weasley were walking away from him.

Without knowing what other thing to do Harry followed them. A few steps away Hugo moved his eyes around and when he didn't saw anyone there he whispered to his sister.

"What if it was us?" he asked.

"It wasn't, it happened to her last time too"

"Yes but maybe last time was not this bad, you looked at her Rose" Hugo said really worried and somehow Harry knew that they were talking about Katie Bell.

"McGonagall relaxed a bit after we told her that she was going to be all right," Rose answered, "You shouldn't worry"

Hugo didn't say anything for a while. Behind them Harry was stunned, he couldn't believe that they had calmed McGonagall about this, did they knew some magic that could cure Katie that the old witch ignored? He didn't think so.

"Do you think they suspect something? I mean you saw them looking at us yesterday"

"Well we weren't being very subtle" Rose said.

"It's hard, not to"

Rose stopped suddenly and Harry almost crashed against them, he was very close to them because their whispers were not very loud. The black haired girl turned her head around, she was suspecting something and for a moment Harry thought that she had spotted him but then she moved back to her brother with a serious look, "I know it's hard, most of the time I can't stop myself either but we got to do it. We have to be more careful"

Hugo nodded and they both resumed the walk.

"I don't think that we are in much trouble though, not for now at least," continued Rose, "Mum is looking at us suspiciously but there's no way she can possibly know. Dad and Uncle Harry are clueless"

The mention of his name surprised Harry and since he was expecting to continue forward - Gryffindor tower was in that way - he ended up crashing against the two siblings when they tried to turn left. The three of them ended up in the floor with Harry's cloak revealing him partially.

"Aaah!"

"What the..."

Harry couldn't see a thing since his glasses had fallen to the floor. He moved his eyes around and then he heard Hugo's voice, "Woaw! is that a leg?"

He had been caught. Suddenly Harry was hitting himself mentally, so many times under the cloak and he happened to make a mistake now? They were going to find out and what was he going to say?

"I-I- don't... " Rose said, they must had noticed the cloak because the next thing that Harry knew was that the girl was lifting the fabric as Harry rubbed his head. Rose gasped when Harry's face was uncovered.

"Uncle Harry!?"

"Hugo!" Rose yelled at her brother.

"Oh yeah!... Sorry... I..."

Harry heard a sigh from Rose who was now shaking the dust out of her legs, then she picked something from the floor and touched it lightly with her wand. "Reparo" the girl said softly, "Here"

She handed him his glasses and as soon as Harry put them on he felt less lost, "Thanks, I-I... I'm sorry... I was not looking where I was going," he started then picked the cloak from the floor and tried to fold it in a way that it couldn't be noticed by someone passing by, fortunately the three of them were alone at the hallway, "Err... this... this is..."

"An invisibility cloak, we know" said Hugo

"Em, yeah"

They stared uncomfortably at each other until Harry broke the silence, "You called me _Uncle Harry_" he said to Hugo quite confused.

"No I didn't" the boy answered at once with a scared look on his dark eyes, his sister was glaring at him.

"Yes you did, I heard you... you were talking about Katie and... wait. Your last name, it's We-Weasley, isn't it?" he asked.

"NO!" Rose yelled hastily, "We are Wallace, Hugo and Rose Wallace. Our father was a wizard from Scotland but we live in Hampshire, our Mum is a Muggleborn and..."

"Rose" Hugo said shaking her sleeve.

"What?"

Hugo didn't answer, he only pointed to a spot not far away on the floor, when the girl followed him she gasped covering her mouth with both hands. Both of them were pale. Harry then turned too and saw that they were looking at a piece of paper on the floor wide opened, the Marauder's Map, it was still showing dots with names moving around the school. His eyes opened wide and he hurried to pick it up.

After a moment Harry realized that somehow they recognized the map which didn't make any sense, "Who are you? You... know what this is?"

Both siblings nodded pretty scared.

"I-It's- the Ma-Marauder's Map"

Harry was surprised and troubled, he couldn't understand one thing of what was going on. How could they know what the map was? there was no other like it. He tried to leave that behind for a moment, the important part was that the paper didn't show them as Wallace and he needed to know why.

"Well then, you are Weasleys." Harry insisted more sure of himself, the fake Wallaces nodded again in defeat. "Mind to explain?" he asked looking at them with different eyes, the first thing he realized was that they weren't redheads which he thought was like a required feature for all Weasleys, Ron said that practically all of his family were red haired, even distant cousins.

Rose shook her head violently, "We can't"

"You need to tell me, what are you doing here? who are you? why are you hiding like this?" They didn't seem like Death Eaters but Harry wasn't sure why they were hiding otherwise.

The siblings turned to each other quite worried, "Sorry, we can't say it. It's for the best"

Harry frowned letting out a snort. Last year he was told that he couldn't know something, that it was for his best not knowing, he hated it and it only ended up with Sirius dying. The memory of his dead godfather made him gloomy for a bit but he wasn't going to back out now, he was going to find out what was happening one way or another. "You better tell me what's all of this about, I'll find out either way"

When they didn't answer Harry frowned and started walking away, "Fine, I'll ask Ron about this. He's a Weasley, he ought to know what's going on with you two"

"NOO!" Rose's yells reached him as the girl rushed and pulled from his arm, stopping him from continuing his way, "You can't tell...him ! not him, please"

Hugo joined followed them, "R-Ron doesn't have to know, neither does Mu- He-Hermione." the boy corrected himself.

Harry raised an eyebrow, "Hermione? What does she have to do with any of this?" he asked but he didn't got an answer, "Look, they're my friends and Ron's a Weasley." he insisted.

"Please don't, please you can't, it's important" Rose looked desperate, "Crucial actually, Professor Dumbledore asked us. You weren't supposed to find out, nobody was, the charms were working and we were not... I mean we thought that... please promise that you won't tell" in some way the black haired girl reminded him Hermione.

The mention of the headmaster's name took him by surprise, "Dumbledore? I-I don't get it... what does it matter that Ron knows that there are Weasleys in here... it's not like... I..."

"It's for the war, if Voldemort finds out..." said Hugo gaining a deathly glare from his sister.

Harry was dumbfounded, the war? what did the two of them had to do with the war? and why were they discussing it with Dumbledore? He also didn't miss that the boy used _his_ name without hesitating.

"The war?"

Rose took a deep breath, "Look, we can explain but with Professor Dumbledore"

"He is not here, not until Monday"

"You have to understand! We can't tell you without him!"

Harry frowned, it was Dumbledore again. The headmaster had promised that he wasn't going to keep things from him, not after the bloody prophecy. "I don't want to wait, if you don't tell me right now I'll go get Ron and Hermione and we will find what is going on one way or the other. We'll ask McGonagall or Ron's father or whoever we need to."

"He already knows that we're here" said Hugo.

"Who? Mr Weasley?" Hugo nodded at his question.

Silence took over them and after thinking about it Harry knew that there was no way that he could keep something like this from Ron and Hermione unless there was a pretty strong reason and even in that case he wasn't so sure of it, he didn't like lies. He sighed, "I'm going to talk to them, so either you explain this to me or I'll be going"

Hugo and Rose exchanged troubled looks, "We don't have any other option" said the boy.

The girl sighed, "Can't we have at least until tomorrow? It's almost curfew" she said but she must had realized that Harry was not backing out, "All right, we need to find Professor McGonagall"

It was indeed very late but Harry agreed to go to Professor McGonagall if the old witch was going to give him answers. They walked there in complete silence with a few weird looks thrown from prefects, they seemed to find suspicious the unusual trio walking alone in the hallways so close to curfew. Hugo and Rose jumped a little every time a new prefect or student came out of a corner, maybe thinking that it could be Ron or Hermione.

Minutes later they were all standing in front of Professor McGonagall's desk, the teacher had the sternest look that Harry had ever seen in her. Before her the Marauder's Map was wide opened and she was giving it a studious check, Harry was surprised the moment the fake Wallaces mentioned it, he was now afraid that McGonagall was going to take the map from him. Maybe he didn't thought this through.

"Well this explains a lot" the old witch said after a while raising her sight from the paper, she moved her eyes from Rose and Hugo and then to Harry who was on the other side of the desk, "We should had foreseen this"

"Sorry, we forgot that he had it" said Rose, the girl and her brother were lowering their eyes as being reprimanded. They were acting as if they had done something wrong. Harry was still not sure how they knew about the map in the first place.

"Eh... professor?" Harry asked, the old witch turned to him and gave a slight nod, "They didn't do anything, it was me who crashed with them. It's just that I needed to know what's going on, is this about Ron? is everybody all right?" Harry asked feeling nervous, for the first time since he saw those names back at the Gryffindor tower he thought that something could be happening to the Weasleys and that scared him.

The woman released a long sigh, "This might have something to do with Mr Weasley yes, still I believe we can handle it if we are careful. As far as I know Molly, Arthur and the rest of the Weasleys are doing fine. You don't have to worry about that"

Harry nodded seriously.

Professor McGonagall fixed her green eyes on him, like deciding something. "All of this would had been easier if you had only waited for Professor Dumbledore to return. I am now afraid that if let you go without an explanation you will go and show this map to Miss Granger and Mr Weasley, I don't think it's wise to take it from you either, that could be noticed."

Somehow Harry knew that the best thing to do was to remain quiet.

"Sit down, all of you, we'll need to talk with the truth. At least part of it." the teacher said sitting behind her desk too, she put the map aside for a moment and Harry was again hopeful that he could get it back. He didn't know why though, the map seemed like something Professor McGonagall wouldn't want on one of her students hands.

The witch conjured a couple of extra chairs our of thin air and Rose and Hugo sat at Harry's side looking frightened.

"Before we start I want you Mr Potter to promise me something. May I have your word that what will be said here is not going to reach Mr Weasley's and Miss Granger's ears? This is a delicate topic, a knowledge that could alter the outcome of the war itself"

Harry was shocked, he still couldn't see the connection between Rose, Hugo and the war. "I-I-" he mumbled nervously.

"I won't go on if I don't have your word here," the woman continued moving her square glasses a little, "I believe that your word means something of course. No matter how close your friends are to you this should not reach them. It shouldn't have reached your either but I hope that Professor Dumbledore will know how to minimize the damage when he arrives."

Suddenly it was obvious that the whole thing was bigger than what Harry thought in the first place. There was something about these new Weasleys that made the whole thing of him knowing them a complicated topic. Harry wondered what to answer, he was definitely not going to lie to McGonagall but how could he keep something from Hermione and Ron? specially when it seemed to be so important and even related to Ron.

"Would I be able to tell them when Professor Dumbledore arrives? could he be ok with it?"

Rose and Hugo turned to the professor with a lot of attention, "I'm afraid not. I don't see how he could approve it." Professor McGonagall said and paused briefly, "I need your word here Mr Potter, you can stay and hear the story or you can take this... peculiar map of yours and go back to your bed."

It was a difficult position, somehow he knew what the professor meant, if he stepped out of that room he would not know what was going on. The three of them could pass a lot of time following Hugo and Rose or even pass hours at the library and they wouldn't discover anything, this was not something hidden in a book, this was something else. It was clear for him that the teacher preferred him knowing than Ron and Hermione suspecting that there was something off happening. Why them? What did Hermione had to do with it if it was Weasley business?

Harry sighed and nodded, "If it is important I won't say a thing, not until it's safe, I promise... but if Dumbledore says that I can-"

McGonagall raised a hand making it known that his answer was enough for her. "Well lets get this over with, I don't want Gryffindor students wandering so late after curfew" she started and moved her stern eyes to Rose, "Miss Weasley have you been able to master your charms?"

"Em... not yet, I think I can handle the hair but I still need a little practice on everything else"

The teacher nodded, "Mr Potter the first thing you need to know is that these are not Miss Weasley's and Mr Weasley's real appearances. I'll need to change that for a moment for you to understand"

Slowly the old witch took out her wand and pointed it at Rose and Hugo, she waved it in weird movements and when she was over Harry was left stunned. Rose and Hugo changed, their hairs turned Weasley red and few freckles spread across their cheeks, Rose's straight hair expanded to a big bushy mane. That was not all of it, their faces had changed too and after a quick second Harry knew why their new looks were so familiar to him.

"R-Ron? He-erminoe?" he asked dumbfounded.

"Mr Weasley and Miss Weasley are from the future," the witch continued taking Harry by surprise, "They came here with the help of an improved time turner, one that can travel back many years, and they did it in a situation that I don't want to discuss right now." she stared at them and weirdly they lowered their eyes to the floor.

Harry was shocked, he had only known one time turner but the idea of one going years back into the past seemed incredible and pretty dangerous. He wanted to say that it was impossible but he was not Hermione, he didn't know what was possible and what was not with these things.

"The reason we need for hiding their appearances and for being so secretive is that they are from twenty six years into the future, their sole presence here can affect the outcome of the war in an adverse way."

The thoughts racing on Harry's head were a mess but still there was only one questioned that popped on his head, "They can affect the war? We-we won?" he asked turning at them questioningly.

Professor McGonagall nodded, "According to them the future is quite a good one, we need to alter as little as possible to keep that future."

"We made it? we really...? is he... gone?"

Hugo nodded, "You killed him, everybody knows about it... in the future"

Harry was shocked, yesterday he doubted that he could live that long and now he found out that he killed Voldemort. He couldn't believe it, he just didn't know he was able to do something like that. Dumbledore was much more capable of defeating Tom than he ever would be.

"Can you see it now Mr Potter? This is a difficult situation, any little change can ruin everything. I don't want to scare you but it is possible that Professor Dumbledore will even think about erasing your memories and I am afraid that I would agree with him. None of you knowing will be for the best"

His eyes sprung open. He didn't want his memories removed but he was still struggling to assimilate the old witch's words, he couldn't think on a way to argue against it. He killed Voldemort, what if he did something different this time? what if things changed and he wins now? He didn't want that. He wondered, if the headmaster was going to suggest to obliviate him, what was he going to say or do then?

"That's why I trust you will keep the promise you just made, Mr Weasley and Miss Granger knowing would compromise many things here"

"Knowing? knowing what? they wouldn't want the future changed either... I-I ... I just don-t see how they knowing about Hugo and Rose is more dangerous than me..." he said turning to the Weasleys and his expression turned blank, he couldn't stop staring at them.

"That's why we hide their appearances, I hope you see it now, Mr Weasley and Miss Weasley here are their children. Ronald and Hermione Weasley are their parents in the future"

Harry's jaw dropped opened. He couldn't think clearly, they definitely looked like them but Ron and Hermione together was something that came out of nowhere. They had been fighting about the most insignificant things for years, was that really fighting? He was very confused.

"You can't say anything Uncle Harry, please" said Rose and Harry jumped in his place at the way she had called him. He had heard that before from them but now they were not trying to hide it. "If Mum and Dad know they might come together sooner! that will complicate things! it will change them and ... you heard it... it would be disastrous if he... Voldermort, if he wins and..."

It was official he hadn't been so confused in his life before and that was saying something, there were so many things said and all at once. He was 'Uncle Harry', these Weasleys knew him, cared about him and probably his future self cared about them too. He didn't had anything, he didn't know how to react.

"It would had been better not to have them here but Hogwarts had another plan," continued the professor, "their beds appeared and records were changed. We had to put them here to avoid suspicions, you can imagine that if something is worse that accidentally changing the future that is the Death Eaters finding about them. We would be entering in unexpected territory if it was known that they lost last time."

He could see that, they couldn't allow Voldemort from discovering them, even Rose and Hugo would be in danger. What would Hermione and Ron say if they knew they had children around them and that they were going through such a difficult moment? Harry felt sorry for them and guilty of having yelled before, it must have been pretty tough to hide themselves like that even from their loved ones.

"While Professor Dumbledore finds a way to return them to their own time we must keep this facade, I hope you understand that."

Harry nodded weakly, looking at the Weasleys. Rose talked softly, "Mum and Dad are not supposed to be together until the end of next school year. You see Uncle Harry? if they found about us that could change... we can't let that happen"

After a brief pause he nodded again, if he had known this was so hard he could had preferred not knowing at all. It was a fact that he couldn't tell to Ron or Hermione this, he wouldn't risk it, however that didn't meant that he was going to have an easy time. How much time was he going to be lying to his best friends? For the first time he considered having his memories erased as a valid alternative.

Another idea came to him, of changing things for the better, making the outcome of the war an improvement from last time. There were surely losses last time, what if they could prevent everyone from dying? Unfortunately he had the answer that he expected from Professor McGonagall. He mentioned that time was not something to play with, they might lose people either way. Harry tried to argue again but he was stopped without a possibility of continuing.

Moments later he was escorted back to the Gryffindor common room by Professor McGonagall, they had already left Rose at the Ravenclaw tower. He turned his green eyes to Hugo who had his hair totally black again, the boy had gone through something difficult he knew it, there was some kind of shadow in his face. However he now looked a bit more relaxed as if a burden had left him with Harry finding out.

Harry promised to himself not to leave them alone, he might not know them yet but they were isolated and if Hermione and Ron couldn't talk to them he could at least spare a few moments in the day to exchange some words. He didn't ask about it to Professor McGonagall, it was not a big change to the future specially if his memory was going to be erased and he also thought that his professor would had refused.

After thinking a bit about it he realized that talking to the Weasleys might not be possible though, the headmaster could obliviate him as soon as the next monday.

"Hey! where were you?" asked Ron jumping from his bed as soon as he saw him, "Hermione and I were looking all around for you"

"In the library, had to check an answer from Transfiguration homework" He said looking at his redhaired friend as he had never seen him before. It was unbelievable that he had two kids wandering around the school and that he didn't knew it, two kids with Hermione.

Ron raised an eyebrow but he didn't question him any more.

The weekend was pretty strange, the entire time Harry couldn't keep from thinking about the future or the Weasleys. He also paid more attention to Hermione and Ron, he was able to notice something between them. There was attraction there but he hadn't notice it before, not this seriously, he wondered if his friends were aware of it.

He saw Rose a couple of times from far away and Harry couldn't stop picturing her as he saw her the night before even when she was waving her straight black hair again. The girl smiled at him once and he smiled weakly back, so far it had been difficult to move away from Ron and Hermione to talk to them but he was going to do it eventually, if Dumbledore didn't erased his memories before of course.

The meeting with Dumbledore went way better than he expected it though. The headmaster was already informed of everything by Professor McGonagall and he said that erasing Harry's memory was probably the best thing to do, Harry closed his eyes then expecting to receive the spell, he regretted not saying his goodbyes to Rose and Hugo. Although ee wasn't hit by any spell, Dumbledore said that he wasn't going to do it now, apparently he had to solve the problem of the map first.

Professor McGonagall had returned the map to him the night before to avoid suspicions from Ron adn Hermione, the headmaster said that if he erased his memory they would return to the same problem once his eyes landed there again, he couldn't take it from him either because that could affect future events too. The wizard was going to work on a modified copy of the map which featured Rose and Hugo as Wallaces before proceeding with the whole memory erasing.

Harry sighed in relief, he was not very eager to forget things like that.

The rest of the meeting was all focused on pensieve memories specifically about the first time that Dumbledore met Tom, the darkest wizard of the world was merely a boy then but there was something off about him. He didn't know why but Dumbledore was specially interested in Harry understanding all what he could about Voldemort and he was not going to question the old wizard's motives.

The next day and the ones that followed it were quite different for him. He was now part of two groups, he spent most of his time with Ron and Hermione and they soon heard the whole story about Tom's and Dumbledore's first meeting. On the other hand, he was able to talk to Rose and Hugo too and he really enjoyed their company, they were like Ron and Hermione but in a weird way talking to them was completely different. The future Weasleys didn't say much about the future for obvious reasons and Harry tried not to push them, they were also quite interested in Harry's sessions with Dumbledore because that was a part of the story that they didn't know about.

Unfortunately most of Harry's meetings with Rose and Hugo were short, he was running out of excuses to escape to the Room of Requirement or to stay alone after a practice in the Quidditch pitch. There were not many places where they could talk freely without being spotted.

"I played like a sack of dragon dung," said Ron one day after the worst Quidditch practice of the term. They had been left behind and Harry saw Ron way too depressed to let him go back alone to the castle, he would have to talk to Rose and Hugo later.

In all fairness Ron was not that bad of a player but he really lacked confidence. "No, you didn't," said Harry firmly. "You're the best Keeper I tried out, Ron. Your only problem is nerves."

All the way to the castle Harry couldn't raise his friend's low spirit. He completely forgot everything about Quidditch soon because behind one of the tapestries in the way to the Gryffindor tower they found Ginny and Dean kissing effusively.

The world seemed to freeze for a moment and as Ron and Ginny started yelling at each other Harry was left with a mess of emotions, he was definitely angry though. At first he thought that it was because Ginny was Ron's sister and he wanted to protect her but he soon realized that he was lying to himself. There was something there, something that he hadn't seen before or that he had been too blind to recognize.

He was jealous, as much as Harry would had liked to say that he was just protecting Ginny the fact was that he wouldn't be angry at all if the one snogging her was him and not Dean. Harry felt troubled, she was Ron sister, he couldn't just do something about it. He didn't want to lose Ron's friendship, it was way to valuable for him.

"Harry's snogged Cho Chang!" shouted Ginny at one point, she sounded close to tears now, "And Hermione snogged Viktor Krum, it's only you who acts like it's something disgusting, Ron, and that's because you've got about as much experience as a twelve-year-old!"

That really hit Ron and after Ginny left Harry's redhead friend remained there stunned and looking hurt. Ron was serious and he didn't talk on their way up until they reached the common room.

"D'you think Hermione did snog Krum?" Ron asked abruptly once there.

Harry was far away, imagining himself in that corridor with Ginny so he was caught of guard by the question. "What?" he said confusedly. "Oh ... er ..." The honest answer was "yes," but he did not want to give it. However, Ron seemed to gather the worst from the look on Harry's face.

He didn't know what to do, his friends were not supposed to be together for a year or so but it was hard to see Ron like that. He wondered how badly could he affect the future if he just pushed them a bit together.

Thinking about the future again made him wonder about different things. His heart shrank at the thought of Ginny marrying Dean, he was surely an honorary uncle to Rose and Hugo but was Dean their real one? He found himself with no strengths to help Ron since he was way too much sad himself.

"Oh C'me on! he couldn't be that bad! He is an amazing Keeper" Hugo said the next day as they walked towards the Room of Requirement. Harry had made sure with the map that Hermione and Ron were nowhere around, the excuse of him looking for Malfoy had been useful so far. It was not that he had forgotten about Malfoy but he wasn't moving forward with that and neither Hugo or Rose wanted to help him there, he at least could use him as an excuse to wander away from his friends.

"He is and amazing Keeper, he taught me all what I know" added Rose as they stepped inside the huge training room.

The Room of Requirement could take any form that they asked for but the first time he used it with Ron's children he made the exact version of the previous year appear, it was the only one he had on his mind. Rose mentioned that they could ask for a different thing but Hugo wanted to keep it the same, he wanted Harry to help him with some spells and Harry was glad to help. The only difference was that the training room now had a couple of comfortable chairs in the end.

After they were inside Rose flicked her wand to her face and then to Hugo, soon their appearances were back to being Weasleys again. Rose had mastered the charms and she liked to be her normal self as much as possible, "Better" she said with a smile once that she had her bushy red mane again.

"You are a Keeper?"

Rose nodded smiling, "Not the best but at least I made it to my house's team a couple of years ago"

"I can't understand it, Dad is an great. He can't be as bad as you say."

"He just needs a little of self-confidence" said Harry, "He was all weary on our way back to the castle and things only got worse when..." he paled, " forget it"

Hugo raised an eyebrow, Rose looked interested, "Hey you were telling us already, what is it? Did someone played a prank on him?"

Harry shook his head, he was pondering his options. Harry didn't know of what he was more afraid of, hearing that Ginny ended up with Dean or not knowing at all. He soon made up his mind, "We found Ginny in one corridor, she was... well kissing De-Dean" he said trying to sound casual.

Rose who was now sitting at one couch opened her eyes wide looking worried, "And how are you?"

"Me?... well I didn't react as Ron, your...father started yelling and..."

Next to him Hugo was looking as if something had made him ill, "No, she means... well... weren't you jealous?"

Harry was taken aback by that, "Jealous? why?... I-I-" he mumbled blushing furiously.

"Hugo, we can't..."

"What? he already fancies Aunt Ginny, I'm sure of it." he said to his sister, "Wasn't it on his sixth year?"

Shock filled Harry's face, "Sixth year? what happens in sixth year?"

Rose glared at Hugo but the boy shoved her argument away, "What does it matter Rose? They are already going to delete Uncle Harry's memory either way." said the boy and then he moved his blue eyes to Harry as his sister snorted, "You and Aunt Ginny started dating in sixth year"

His eyes opened wide in astonishment and something inside him purred hoping that Hugo's words were true. However another part of him didn't quite believe it, "But... that-s not- She's with Dean..."

Hugo grinned, "Not for long, I hope, she should break with him in a few months at most," the redhead boy said walking towards a dummy, he was preparing himself to throw a spell at it as if their talk was the most normal for Harry. "Don't worry, you will marry Aunt Ginny"

"HUGO!" Rose was frowning now.

Harry was stunned. Could it be possible? could he really be married to Ginny in the future? Harry was far away now, celebrating in the inside.

"Relax Rose, it's not like he'll go and..." Hugo started but he didn't got to finish. A sound echoed from the main doors of the Room of Requirement and the three of them turned at once with terrified expressions to the entrance.

"What?!" a fourth voice asked next to the door.

* * *

**Next Chapter (Ginny): Ron's Girlfriend**

**So yes, 6 chapters now, this is now part of the story rotation will put some other chapters on my other stories, been focusing a lot on this. I had a few major things figured out on this story, it is going to get better pretty soon.  
**


	7. ON HOLD

**I'm putting this on hold for now. It is not that I don't have ideas or the time to write this (I actually have a lot of this figured out and next chapters were going to be great), the problem is that since I have way too much active stories I am starting to write rushed chapters. I'll only focus on 3 stories for now, I'll leave this and the Gatekeeper Book on hold for now.**


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